America’s national parks turn out to be billion-dollar moneymakers

There is very promising news from the well-known national parks around America.

A new National Park Service report reveals 330 million visitors to parks around the nation have money to spend on history or an outdoors experience. These visitors shelled out $35.8 billion to do so in 2017 — boosting local economies and supporting 306,000 jobs nationwide, with 255,900 of those jobs found in “gateway communities.”

According to the 2017 report, most park visitor spending was for lodging/camping (33 percent) followed by food and beverages (27 percent), gas and oil (12 percent), souvenirs (10 percent), admissions and fees (10 percent) and local transportation (7 percent)

The report also found that exactly 57,875,546 visitors showed up at the 33 national parks in the Washington area in 2017 and spent $1.14 billion doing so. The final results, according to the federal parks agency: the visitors helped create 16,330 local jobs and had a cumulative benefit to the regional economy of $1.66 billion.

These parks include the well-known monuments along the National Mall along with such sites as Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in the District of Columbia, Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland and Manassass National Battlefield Park in Virginia.