Attachments
Forms
 
 

CURRENT VISITOR & ECONOMIC PROFILES

What is the starting point for your tourism economic development strategy? 

How does tourism compare with other parts of your local economy in terms of jobs, income, businesses, public revenues, etc.? 

Who is already coming to visit your community and why? 

How many people currently visit your community and its attractions each year? 

Who are the potential "customers" for your tourism products?

 

Purpose

The purpose of this two part step is to develop a description of the amount and current types of tourism in the local area and a sense of tourism's current place within the local economy. Profiles provide baseline information that will help you make decisions throughout the Community Tourism Assessment process. This information can assist you in setting goals for tourism as one or perhaps several diverse strategies within your community's overall economic development program. It is essential to understanding visitor markets and characteristics, visitation levels, and infrastructure requirements and to assessing economic impacts of current and proposed projects. It can be used later to suggest potential markets and projects that are in demand and to provide background data for the project development and marketing steps. Furthermore, techniques you develop for estimating current visitation can also be used to monitor changes in the level of visitation and types of visitors over time. 

 
 

Objectives

By the end of this step, the action committee will have: 

created a picture of what types of people come to visit the community, for how long, to do what, and spending how much by analyzing visitor data on: 

a. age 
b. income 
c. reasons for travel 
d. places of origin 
e. mode of travel 
f. things they like to do 
g. expenditures 

gathered information on what portion of the local economy (jobs, personal income, export sales) is attributed to the tourism industry in comparison to other major sectors like agriculture, government and manufacturing. 

accumulated vital data to use in the Economic Impact Assessment and Marketing phases of the tourism development process. 
 
 
 

1. Read through the entire chapter to familiarize yourselves with the concepts presented and the type of information recommended for you to find and analyze. 

2. Spend some time brainstorming how you think the concepts play out in your community. 

3. Contact your local extension agent for references on where to go to find information, or people who can generate it with you, to analyze both the Current Visitor and Economic Profiles.