Dear Winthrop Chamber Members and Friends,
At the last week's Winthrop chamber Monthly Membership Meeting, James DeSalvo, Executive Director of Methow Trails, presented an update on the economic analysis report Methow Trails has recently completed. The report not only focused on the impact of recreation and trails on the local economy but also has broader information for the Methow Valley. This report contains good information and we wanted to let you know about it. This goes along with the Chamber’s strategic objective to increase tourism outside the busy summer months.
Below are notes from the meeting.
The Executive Summary can found at http://www.methowtrails.org/
· What economic opportunity exists for me in the next 15 years? (Almost double current spending)
· Is my business growth keeping pace with the growth of trail recreation? (Last 10 years average annual skier days have increased 12%/year)
· How can I make my property more valuable? (9% increase in value if location on or within ¼ mile of trail)
The data in here is very instructive but what is even more valuable is comparing the 3 economic analysis from the last 17 years in order to predict the future. Three economic indicators shared were; total expenditures by trail users, jobs directly related to trail users, and tax revenue from trail users. What this data indicates across the board is growth.
GROWTH IN RECREATION-
· Expenditures $12.4M/year. Doesn’t include jobs or taxes. Forecast in 15 years this will nearly double to $22.5M/year.
o Skier days annual average increase of 12%/year. Your pool of recreation based customers is growing 12%/year
Questions to ask yourself:
· Am I seeing this growth in my business and am I tapping into this these customers? How do we as a business community build that number?
Methow Trails spends a lot of time working on this internally; kids ski free, increasing diversity of users and seasons, low snow contingency plans, supporting events partners, etc.
· JOBS-152 FTE/year . (In last 10 years jobs grew +19% in the trails sector while Methow Valley job average declined -1.5%). Forecast in 15 years increase 71% to 260 FTE/year.
· TAXES- $696,296/year in tax revenue due to trail users. 15 years increase 72% to $1.2M Taxes
