- October 5, 2021
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A few clouds. Low 48F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..
A few clouds. Low 48F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
Updated: October 4, 2021 @ 8:37 pm
Madison River in Yellowstone National Park is a fly fishing mecca for serious anglers. It is classified as a blue ribbon fishery in Montana and is one of the most productive streams in Montana
For the first time since 2019, Memorial Stadium open…
Madison River in Yellowstone National Park is a fly fishing mecca for serious anglers. It is classified as a blue ribbon fishery in Montana and is one of the most productive streams in Montana
(The Center Square) – Montana’s leisure hospitality industry fell a long way, but it’s growing strongly, an economic expert with the Bureau of Business and Economic Research said.
The extent of the damage done to the leisure industry is difficult to assess because it’s a summer-peaking business and summer has not quite ended, Patrick Barkey, director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana, told The Center Square.
“The key for Montana’s hospitality industries is what’s our capacity? The parks are limited, hotels, motels, outfitters, not all those businesses survived. So the fact that the ones that you’re looking at are busy, is not necessarily an indicator,” he said.
Rising credit card receipts make it appear to be a good recovery based on spending for motels and restaurants, he stated.
The key to the leisure and hospitality industry’s success is not how busy existing businesses are, but instead how many of them there are, Barkey said.
“A lot of Montanans like to look at the roads in the summer and go wow, tourism is booming. And of course, it’s a seasonal industry and it blooms every summer so that’s about as exciting as the sun coming up in the morning and just as predictable,” he said.
In many ways, the industry has recovered, Barkey noted.
“It can grow by people reopening and restarting some of the businesses that were lost,” he said.
The data points that are available include a comparison of job openings by state pre-pandemic compared to current listings as recorded by Indeed.com. Montana had the highest increase in job openings at 62%, he said.
Montana’s seasonal economy shows, with the impact of tourism, having employment going up and down by approximately 25,000 jobs. The workforce is only approaching 500,000 depending on how it’s measured, Barkey said.
He said there was a pretty big swing, with the summer peak occurring in industries that use a lot of labor. People plan to work in the summer and take time off during other times, he added.
“There’s plenty of demand for labor in those industries. In terms of how that’s impacted, the industry’s recovery, I think it’s been, quite frankly, a huge headache for a lot of restaurants, outfitters and even personal services industries,” he said.
The increased hesitancy and costs of international travel could be a boon for Montana’s tourism industry.
“I don’t have good data on this, but my guess is that there’s some pent-up tourism demand that has been directed to domestic sites that might have gone overseas,” Barkey said.
That’s consistent with park reservations, which are high, he said.
This article originally ran on thecentersquare.com.
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