Report finds visitors spent $716M in Montana communities near NPS sites in 2023

One of the boats that runs between Waterton Townsite and Goat Haunt is the International. Built in 1927, the International has carried thousands of visitors across the border during its lifetime. Passengers can disembark for a brief sightseeing opportunity, while others take the boat to start multi-day backpacking trips. (Photo by Glacier National Park / NPS)

Montana is a top 15 benefactor of national parks in terms of visitor spending, jobs, labor income, value added to the state and economic output, and visitors spent roughly $716 million in Montana communities near the national parks and historic sites in Montana in 2023, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Park Service.

National Park Service sites contributed to about 10,900 jobs in Montana, about $362 million in labor income, added $551 million in value to the state’s economy, and contributed about $1.1 billion in economic output, according to the report . All five sectors put Montana between 10th and 14th in the nation among all states.

In 2023, about 7.9 million visits were logged between Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Big Hole National Battlefield, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, and Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The vast majority of those visits, about 7.5 million, were to Glacier (2.9 million visitors) and Yellowstone (4.5 million visitors).

Yellowstone National Park, which contributes to local economies in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, saw visitors spend about $623 million in nearby communities last year, which supported about 8,500 jobs locally and $291 million in labor income. The park service said those visitors generated about $828 million in total economic output for nearby communities.

Glacier National Park supported about 5,700 jobs and generating about $187 million in labor income and $555 million in economic outputs for surrounding towns, cities and counties.

But the other National Park Service sites in Montana also brought in more than half a million visitors last year as well, along with hundreds of jobs and millions in economic output.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument saw 227,000 visitors last year who spent about $15 million in the region, supporting 222 jobs and generating $20 million in economic output, according to the report. The Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, also in southeast Montana, saw 218,000 visitors who spent an estimated $11 million in the region and supported 147 jobs.

In western Montana, the Big Hole National Battlefield and Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site brought in a combined 82,000 visitors who spent about $5.2 million in the region and supported about 70 jobs, according to the National Park Service.

About 46% of the jobs generated by Glacier National Park were in the hotel and restaurant sectors, and about 42% of Yellowstone-generated jobs came from those two sectors. The jobs created last year surrounding the two parks was the second-most, behind 2021, during the past 11 years for both national parks.

“I’m so proud that our parks and the stories we tell make a lasting impact on more than 300 million visitors a year,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in a statement. “And I’m just as proud to see those visitors making positive impacts of their own, by supporting local economies and jobs in every state in the country.”

The economic impact to Montana from the National Park Service sites in the state came up recently when the Fish and Wildlife Commission considered and approved wolf hunting regulations for the upcoming winter.

Region 3 Commissioner Susan Kirby Brooke offered an amendment that was adopted by the commission to split Wolf Management Unit 313, which sits just north of the Yellowstone National Park boundary near Gardiner, back into two units and to only allow three wolves to be killed in WMU 313 during the year.

She said she was offering the amendment because people living near Gardiner and in the Paradise Valley had said they did not like seeing the wolves killed so close to Gardiner and the negative economic impacts to businesses there.

“A lot of these people are taking tourist business into these areas, and it hurts their business to have that many wolves taken out of that small of an area,” Brooke told the committee.

Earlier this summer, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly wrote a letter regarding the wolf hunting season regulations noting that wolf watching in Yellowstone alone brings in around $80 million to local economies in Gardiner and the area that could be jeopardized if too many Yellowstone wolves are killed, or people see them being killed near surrounding towns.

The 2024 Public Lands Survey released this spring by the University of Montana found 83% of Montanans say having national public lands in Montana is a benefit to the state economy and that 95% of Montanans had visited national public lands during the past year, including more than 50% who visited them at least 10 times over the year.

Nationwide, 325 million visitors went to National Park Service sites in 2023, spending an estimated $26.4 billion in nearby communities and supporting about 415,000 jobs and $55 billion in economic output, according to the report.