National Recreation and Park Association | 2 METHODS As noted above, there are several approaches to assessing the economic value of park systems. The most common is what is generally termed as an economic impact analysis. Economic impact analyses provide estimates of the value of new spending as the dollars for goods and services move through the regional economy. Economic impact analyses provide information to allocate resources among competing projects, assess the potential returns to public (or private) investments and policies, and put “hard numbers” to political strategies. However, as pointed out in a 2010 study sponsored by the National Recreation and Park Association, this terminology is not technically correct. Simply put, an “economic impact” analysis should be an assessment of the net impacts of spending that (a) does not include direct spending by public agencies, and (b) only counts non-local visitor spending for a subset of visitors. The alternative term for studies that examine the impacts of a broader set of spending offered in the NRPA report is a “significance analysis.” The report quotes Stynes (2001): “Economic significance is ‘a measure of the importance or significance of the project/program (rather than its impacts) within the local economy which shows the size and nature of economic activity associated with the project/program in the area.’”1 In this study, we recognize the convention established by the 2010 NRPA report; however, while the use of the term “economic significance” is academically more correct, it means little to non-academic policymakers and the general public. At the same time, it is important to communicate the contribution operations and capital spending by local and regional park agencies has on economic activity and job creation in a manner consistent with the majority of other studies in the public domain. Therefore, we will keep with the common practice in the professional and academic literature and refer to the “economic impacts” of local and regional park spending in this report. This study’s estimates of the economic impacts of local and regional public park agencies focus exclusively on operations and capital spending. What is not measured is economic activity generated by local and regional park systems from tourism. For our national-level analysis, the vast majority of visitor spending would be a net zero sum. If a resident of Kentucky visits a local park in Missouri, it would be a net gain for Missouri but a net loss for Kentucky. But, for the United States, there is no additional visitor spending. While there are a number of local parks that entertain visitors from outside the United States, this represents a very small portion of total visitors to local park systems across the nation. With the state-level analyses, the assessment of the economic impacts of park-generated tourism spending is beyond the scope of this analysis, due largely to limitations on data availability. Therefore, we do not include visitor spending in the state-level assessments. Further, the scope of the study does not consider the economic benefits resulting from other benefits of local and regional parks. This includes this study not attempting to assess the economic value of parks resulting from carbon mitigation and health-related benefits of parks. 1 Crompton (2010). Measuring the Economic Impact of Park and Recreation Services. National Recreation and Park Association
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