National Park Service report details economic impact of tourism along the Delaware River

Visitors to the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River spent $16.6 million in nearby communities, supporting a total of 157 jobs, $8.5 million in labor income and resulting in an estimated cumulative economic output of $21 million, according to a Park Service report. 

The top five sectors for visitor spending were: lodging, restaurants, gas, groceries and retail.

“Visitors that are coming for a weekend need to have places to stay while they’re up here,” said Ingrid Peterec, chief of interpretation at the Upper Delaware unit. “They may be going to grocery stores. They may be going out to the local restaurants. Some people are going to need to get gas.”

The NPS publishes an annual report on the effects of visitor spending on the economies of gateway communities that border national parks.

In August, the NPS published the report analyzing the data from 2023, which found that, on a national level, 325.5 million visitors spent $26.4 billion in communities near national park sites.

Since 2020, the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River has seen an annual uptick in visitors and visitor spending, but the jump from 2022 to 2023 was particularly pronounced.

In 2022, it saw around 271,000 visitors who brought a cumulative benefit of $17 million to local economies. The next year, the river unit recorded around 327,000 visitors, with a cumulative economic benefit of around $21 million. 

Peterec said the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River gathers visitation data from local businesses and from traffic counters placed at access points. These numbers go into monthly reports that are used by the NPS’s social science division to develop an annual visitor spending report.

Better counting means better data

“Our visitation did jump from 2022 to 2023, and part of that is that more people are coming to the Upper Delaware, but part of that is also that we have a better tracking system,” Peterec said. “We put in new traffic counters that are more accurately counting the people that are coming into those locations.”

New vibration-based traffic counters were installed at all access points by the beginning of 2023 and provide more accurate data on the number of cars entering and exiting.

The report made note of an increase in off-season visitation in the spring and fall across all parks in comparison to previous years, a phenomenon that Peterec said has been reflected in the Upper Delaware.

“We always get the fall foliage traffic, but there has been an increase in people coming in the spring, mainly for fishing,” Peterec said. 

DWGNRA sees an uptick in spring visitors

Another National Park Service site along the Delaware River, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, also saw an increase in springtime visitors.

“We are seeing more visitors coming out earlier in the spring,” said Kathleen Sandt, the public information officer at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. “For Delaware Water Gap, the fall season is always very busy for us.”

According to the NPS report, the recreation area recorded 4.2 million visitors in 2023 who spent an estimated $166 million in gateway communities, supporting 2,240 jobs and resulting in a cumulative benefit of $236 million to local economies.

The top five sectors for visitor spending were similar to the top five at the Upper Delaware, but the fifth biggest sector was recreation industries rather than retail.

“If you come out to the park and go anywhere near the water you are going to see lots of people paddling or floating down the river in canoes, rafts, tubes, kayaks and even paddleboards that they have rented from local businesses,” Sandt said.

Visitors to the NPS website can use an interactive tool to view a summary of the results or take a closer look at visitor spending and economic output effects for other parks, including the Delaware River watershed’s historic sites, like Independence National Historical Park in Pennsylvania, or the First State National Historical Park in Delaware.