Tourist spending in MC up

By Jane DeGeorge
Eagle Reporter
Published: November 7, 2008

Tourists brought more money into Madison County in 2007 than four of its five adjoining counties.

State officials estimate that travelers spent close to $37 million in the county last year, a three and a half percent increase from the year before.

“A lot of it is because we’ve got that [U.S.] 29 access right there,” Madison Chamber of Commerce Tourism Coordinator Tracey Williams said of the statistics recently released by the Virginia Tourism Corporation.

In addition to restaurants, gas stations and gift shops along U.S. 29, tourists are drawn to local destinations including Shenandoah National Park, Graves Mountain Lodge and various bed and breakfast inns, according to Williams.

The county’s tourism income has trumped the majority of its surrounding counties since 2003, according to the state tourism corporation’s statistics.

“We somehow pull ahead every year and are always ahead of the other counties,” Williams told the board of supervisors at its regularly scheduled Oct. 14 meeting.

The only one of Madison’s adjoining counties to report higher estimated travel expenditures for the past four years was Page County, which totaled $50.8 million in 2007, according to the report.

Although tourism income is still on the upswing in Madison County, its growth is slowing, the numbers show. From 2003 to 2004, tourism spending increased by 11.5 percent, compared to just three and a half percent from 2006 to 2007.

“I think that is to be expected…it’s just a sign of the economy,” Williams said.

As is typical for the fall season, the tourism coordinator saw a “huge increase” in visits to the chamber of commerce’s visitor center from September to October this year, she said.

“We are getting a lot of British visitors right now,” Williams added.

While visitor numbers this past month are about the same as October 2007, the tourism coordinator said that some owners of local bed and breakfast inns have reported lower visitor numbers compared to this past year.

The recently released Virginia Tourism Corporation numbers are based off estimates, according to Virginia Tourism Corporation Research Manager Sean McCarthy.

The organization calculates the amount of money spent on lodging within counties and based on those numbers comes up with estimates of how much money those overnight visitors likely spent on food and other items during their stay, McCarthy said.

The state tourism corporation uses information from surveys of area travelers to help come up with these estimated additional expenses, he said.
Full reports for every Virginia locality are available on-line at http://virginiascan.yesvirginia.org/localspending.