Armstrong County Sees Increase in Tourism Industry Impacts

by Tourist Bureau Director Kevin Andrews

Each year, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (PA DCED) funds an economic impact report of travel and tourism. The statistics are compiled by Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics Company and the report is broken down by the different regions and the different counties. They also break visitor spending down into the different categories of Direct Sales.

Armstrong County had increases in four of these categories during calendar year 2014: with lodging climbing from $3.7 to $4 million, Food and Beverage up from $16.5 to $17 million, Retail growing from $13 to $13.3 million, and Recreation increasing from $25.6 to $25.7 million.

This shows that people are coming into the area and spending more money on the activities we have to offer.

The total amount of visitors spending did drop from $91.3 to $90.8 million, but this was due to a statewide drop in transportation spending. The transportation category for Armstrong County decreased by $1.7 million and had a -2.0% decrease in the Pittsburgh Region. The statewide trends seemed to show that as people spent less on transportation (rental cars, buses, limos, gasoline, etc.) they would spend more in other categories.

Another section of the report breaks down the economic impact that the local tourism industry has on income and taxes. In Armstrong County, the Tourism Industry Impact on labor income went up from $13.4 million to $14 million. The impact of state and local taxes remained the same at $4.4 million in State and Local and $3.7 in Federal.

The Armstrong County Tourist Bureau is the official tourism promotion agency for Armstrong County. They are a non-profit membership based organization with the purpose of promoting and stimulating the tourism industry in Armstrong County and therefore contributing to the economic growth.

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