By Will Hofmann for the Asheville Citizen Times

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway continue to be two of the National Park Service sites with the greatest economic impact in the country, according to NPS data. The report shows that the Smokies maintains its position as the national park unit in the country bringing in the most dollars to local communities, with the parkway trailing not far behind. Both saw moderate increases in economic activity from 2022 as the parks remain two of the most visited in the country.

The Smokies contributed to more than $2.2 billion in visitor spending in 2023, putting it ahead of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco at $1.5 billion, and visitors to the parkway contributed $1.4 billion, according to data released by the National Park Service Aug. 21.

Both the Smokies and the parkway exceeded their reported 2022 economic impact estimates and the economic output from the two parks in 2023 — meaning the estimated value of goods, services and sales indirectly supported by the national parks — was reported to be over $5.1 billion cumulatively.

“I’m so proud that our parks and the stories we tell make a lasting impact on more than 300 million visitors a year,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in an Aug. 27 news release. “And I’m just as proud to see those visitors making positive impacts of their own, by supporting local economies and jobs in every state in the country.”

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which sprawls across a half-million acres of rugged, forested terrain in Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, is routinely one of the most-visited national parks in the country, with some 13.3 million visitors in 2023. But the most visited unit of the NPS is still the historic Blue Ridge Parkway, with 16.7 million visiting the winding park in 2023, according to the NPS.

“The 2023 visitor spending report is a reminder of the important relationship between the historic, 469-mile Parkway, the numerous communities the park passes through, and park visitors,” said Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout in a Aug. 27 news release on the economic data.

The long, skinny park stretches 469 curvy miles from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and crests the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains, passing directly through Asheville to its terminus at the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee.

For 2023, most of the visitor spending on the parkway — estimated to be around 62% — occurred in North Carolina, where visitors can enjoy parkway trips across the Linn Cove Viaduct and past Grandfather Mountain, down through the Craggy Mountains and Asheville, passing by other popular attractions including Mount Pisgah and Graveyard Fields. For the Smokies, roughly 44% of the visitor spending came to North Carolina. The Smokies, spread almost evenly across North Carolina and Tennessee, has some of the most popular natural attractions in the country’s national parks, including the Cataloochee Valley and its growing elk herd, to Clingmans Dome, the highest point in the park at 6,643 feet in elevation.

“Our ability to care for these special places is strongly linked to the vitality of local economies of present and future generations. Simply put, America’s national parks continue to be great investments,” Swartout continued.

In total, the parkway is estimated to support over 19,000 jobs between Virginia and North Carolina in 2023, according to NPS data. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park supported over 33,748 jobs.

The preceding article originally appeared on August 29, 2024 at the Asheville Citizen-Times website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Photo above: Linn Cove Viaduct in the fall at Milepost 304 on the Blue Ridge Parkway.