Initial assessment of tourism contributions to the Columbus (Georgia) MSA

Tourism overview and background

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (2023), tourism is defined as “a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business/professional purposes. These people are called visitors (which may be either tourists or excursionists; residents or nonresidents) and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which involve tourism expenditure.” The impact of tourism globally can be seen in figures compiled by the World Travel and Tourism Council (2023). In 2021, tourism contributed to 6.1% of the global GDP (USD 5,812 billion) and supported 1 in 11 jobs (289 million jobs). That same year in the U.S., tourism contributed to 5.5% of the country’s GDP (USD 1,271.2 billion) and supported 11 million jobs. In terms of visitor spending in 2021 within the U.S., international visitor spending topped USD 40.3 billion while domestic visitor spending came in at USD 731.5 billion (WTTC, 2023). Americans spend exponentially more on tourism within the U.S. than do international visitors.

Tourism as a system

As many have critiqued the tourism industry for its ‘grayness,’ overlapping with other industries and the difficulty of seeing tangible impacts of travel, Goeldner and Ritchie (2012) approach the tourism industry from a systems-based approach (Figure 1). The most essential, foundational portion of the model Natural Resources and the Environment includes the physiography (i.e., nature and landscape aspects), its climate, and its people (i.e., residents and tourists). The next layer moving toward the core encompasses the Built Environment, that which has been developed or created by humans This component involves tangible aspects (e.g., infrastructure, superstructure, and technology), intangible aspects (e.g., information and governance), and a combination of the two (e.g., culture). Moving further in, we get to the Operating Sectors of the Tourism Industry Most people think of these sectors when they travel, which include accommodations, transportation, food services, entertainment, adventure and outdoor recreation, and events and attractions. At the core of the figure are the private sector components (e.g., national/state/provincial/regional/local tourism associations and convention and visitor bureaus) and public sector components (national/state/provincial/city/local government tourism department offices) responsible for planning, developing, and promoting tourism. Moving back to the outside layer, we find the processes, activities, and outcomes of tourism that take the form of research, policy, planning, development, marketing, philosophy, impacts, and monitoring.

Tourism at regional and local scales can have a profound impact on a community’s tax generation, most often facilitated by hotel occupancy tax (HOT). Couple this with the provision of employment opportunities and greater access to amenities and services for residents, and it is easy to understand how local communities rally behind the tourism industry, seeking to develop and promote it in areas rich in natural and cultural resources. Tourism development highlighting these resources then provides tourists with unique experiences and residents with stronger local and regional economies.

Brief look at Georgia tourism transitioning to Columbus MSA

According to Explore Georgia (2023a), the office overseeing tourism throughout the state, Georgia welcomed 159.2 million domestic and 357,500 international visitors in 2021 ranking it 5th within the U.S. for overnight trips. Though these figures are largely driven by tourism opportunities in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta and the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), the state is chockful of destinations pulling people in for their natural and cultural resource amenities. The Columbus MSA, colloquially referred to as the ‘Chattahoochee Valley,’ is one such place known for its rich history focused on nature and culture. Though the Columbus MSA includes seven counties (Figure 2), one of which is located within the State of Alabama and will not be considered moving forward in this report.

The six counties within the MSA, in order of population size (United States Census Bureau, 2023), are: Muscogee County (206,922); Harris County (34,668); Chattahoochee County (9,565); Marion County (7,498); Talbot County (5,733); Stewart County (5,314). Some of the notable cultural sites within the region are Bo Bartlett Center (Muscogee County), Coca-Cola Space Science Center (Muscogee County), Columbus Museum (Muscogee County), Historic Westville (Muscogee County), Liberty Theatre (Muscogee County), Richland Distilling Company (Stewart County), Springer Opera House (Muscogee County), Swamp Fox Distilling Company (Marion County). Those notable natural sites of the Columbus MSA are Callaway Gardens (Harris County), Chattahoochee River Rafting (Muscogee County), Chattahoochee RiverWalk (Muscogee County), Columbus Botanical Garden (Muscogee County), FDR State Park (Harris County), Florence Marina State Park (Stewart County), and Providence Canyon State Park (Stewart County)

Another major draw to the Columbus MSA is the U.S. Army Fort Benning and the Maneuver Center of Excellence, located within Muscogee and Chattahoochee Counties. The base is comprised of 182,000 acres, housing up to 120,000 active-duty personnel, family members, reservists, retirees, and civilian employees (Military Installations, 2023). Though the exact number of visitors to Fort Benning is not known, with two basic training graduations held nearly every Thursday and Friday morning, it is not difficult to understand the need for the 500+ restaurants and 4,800 hotel rooms in Columbus (Visit Columbus, GA, 2023).

Purpose of report and structure of remaining report

The remainder of this report will serve to initially tell a story about tourism within the Columbus MSA and across each of the six Georgia counties. We will do this through the utilization of data from various sources Explore Georgia, national survey of potential visitors to Georgia, IMPLAN, Smith Travel Research, and Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites.

Visitor spending and brief economic impacts of tourism in Columbus MSA (2017-2021)

To determine visitor spending and economic impacts of tourism for the state of Georgia and its counties, Explore Georgia contracts with the company Tourism Economics. Prior to examining figures across the Columbus MSA and its corresponding counties over the last five years, it is however, important to speak briefly about the methodology that Tourism Economics follows (Explore Georgia, 2023b) Following a historic Travel Economic Impact Model (TEIM), Tourism Economics is able to provide the output measures that are presented as columns in Table 1: total tourism spending, direct labor income, direct tourism employment, federal/state/local taxes, and state/local tax savings from tourism. Some of the inputs to the traditional Input-Output (I-O) model undertaken using IMPLAN (www.implan.com) include syndicated questionnaire data from Longwoods International based on five spending categories (i.e., local transport, lodging, retail, recreation, and food and beverage) and type of visitor to Georgia, employment and wages by county (from the Bureaus of Economic Analysis and Labor Statistics), lodging performance data on room demand and room revenue by county (from Smith Travel Research), hotel occupancy tax by county, sales tax by industry for Georgia (from GA Department of Revenue), seasonal second homes by county (from U.S. Census Bureau), business sales by industry (from U.S. Census Bureau), gasoline price data (from U.S. Energy Information Administration), international inbound traveler visits and expenditures, and aviation-related spending for visitors based on airport and passenger data.