State tourism generates $13.7 billion,
but impact of Civil War sites unavailable

In 2015, Kentucky’s tourism industry had its strongest overall economic growth rate since 2005, generating $13.7 billion.

That’s a five percent increase over the previous year.

Tourism supported more than 186,000 jobs, including 6,200 jobs created in 2015. Kentucky tourism generated more than $1.43 billion in taxes, with $184.9 million going directly to local communities.

Unfortunately, the totals do not reflect the impact of the Commonwealth’s Civil War sites.

The Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism plans to build upon the six pillars of Kentucky Tourism (horses, bourbon, music, arts, outdoors and culinary) over the next year with creative marketing and programming that will reach new audiences and present Kentucky as a top-level destination.

Additionally, the current state budget includes $18 million in additional funding to improve the safety and aesthetics of Kentucky State Parks.

The travel and tourism industry in the United States generated nearly $1.6 trillion in economic output in 2015. This activity supported 8.1 million U.S. jobs, and accounted for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. exports and nearly a third (31 percent) of all U.S. services exports. One of every 18 Americans is employed, either directly or indirectly, in a travel or tourism-related industry. In 2014, U.S. travel and tourism output represented 2.7 percent of gross domestic product.

While the majority of activity in the industry is domestic, expenditures by international visitors in the United States totaled $216.9 billion in 2015, yielding a $61 billion trade surplus for the year. According to U.S. Department of Commerce projections, international travel to the United States should grow by 3.1 percent annually through 2020. The U.S. leads the world in international travel and tourism exports, and travel and tourism is the top services export, accounting for 31 percent of all U.S. services exports in 2015.