The state Department of Tourism just issued a March slideshow by the British firm Tourism Economics analyzing the economic impact of tourism in South Dakota in 2018. Remarkably, even with seven of the eight tourist destinations that the state markets as “The Great 8,” the Black Hills and Badlands tourism region (which includes every West River county not touching the Missouri) drew only 2.46% more tourist dollars than the far flatter and more urban Southeast tourism region:
The Mitchell Daily Republic looks at that chart and misheadlines it, “Black Hills and Badlands Brought in Majority of State Tourism Dollars Last Year, Per Report.” Nein und nicht! 39.2% of the statewide total is only a majority if Speaker Haugaard is counting.
The real headline here is that, despite all of the geographic and marketing advantages of the Black Hills and Badlands (quick: name a unique and nationally known attraction in the Southeast other than the Corn Palace), southeastern South Dakota makes almost as much on tourism as its better known and more widely marketed western competitor. And southeast South Dakota has been closing the gap between its tourist dollars and the Black Hills and Badlands, from $131.8 million in 2014 to just $37.6 million last year. Over the last four years, southeastern SD tourism dollars have been growing at an annual rate of 3.5%, while the Black Hills and Badlands have been increasing revenues at 1.7%. At those rates, we could expect tourists to spend more in Sioux Falls and Yankton than in Rapid City and Deadwood next year.
Tourism supports 37,644 direct jobs in the state, which earn $851.55 million. That’s an average wage of $22,621. If you’re getting that kind of money for four months of work, that’s great! But making a year-round living in tourism appears to require some extra hustle.
In the fourteen counties supporting the most tourism jobs (more than 400 per county), the highest tourism wages appear to be Lawrence, Custer, Minnehaha, and Pennington, all of which have average per-worker direct tourism income higher than the state average:
| County | Direct Employment | DE share of state | Direct Labor Income ($M) | DLI share of state | avg income per direct tourism worker |
| Lawrence | 3,894 | 10.34% | $103.72 | 12.18% | $26,636 |
| Custer | 665 | 1.77% | $17.50 | 2.06% | $26,316 |
| Minnehaha | 10,523 | 27.95% | $262.66 | 30.84% | $24,961 |
| Pennington | 7,181 | 19.08% | $168.05 | 19.73% | $23,402 |
| Beadle | 483 | 1.28% | $10.55 | 1.24% | $21,843 |
| Brown | 1,878 | 4.99% | $40.45 | 4.75% | $21,539 |
| Hughes | 910 | 2.42% | $19.43 | 2.28% | $21,352 |
| Davison | 1,206 | 3.20% | $24.91 | 2.93% | $20,655 |
| Lincoln | 591 | 1.57% | $12.09 | 1.42% | $20,457 |
| Union | 503 | 1.34% | $10.24 | 1.20% | $20,358 |
| Fall River | 414 | 1.10% | $8.13 | 0.95% | $19,638 |
| Codington | 991 | 2.63% | $18.65 | 2.19% | $18,819 |
| Yankton | 838 | 2.23% | $15.68 | 1.84% | $18,711 |
| Brookings | 1,463 | 3.89% | $26.21 | 3.08% | $17,915 |
| state | 37,644 | $851.55 | $22,621 |
By the way, Brown County is 70 miles from I-29, yet it rakes in almost twice as much in tourism spending as either Brookings or Codington County and 77% more than Corn-Palace- and I-90-blessed Davison County. Brown County also pays better average tourism wages than any of those three better-located counties… although all four of us are still paying below the state average. And Aberdeen should be careful about bragging: Brown County is making less money on tourism than it did four years ago, as are Davison and Codington, while Brookings has shown growth in tourism dollars.
How do they determine which Brown County spending is tourism related and how much is just area farmers on a 100+ mile parts run that includes a stop at Pizza Ranch and a fill up and coffee at the gas station?
One might wonder how these fellows classify what is a tourism dollar, for in the flatter southeast there are far more people who are fancier and like to dine out often and eat expensive meals and stay in the frilliest of hotels just for fun or because their houses are being remodeled. If the eateries are classified as tourism businesses or if the people eating there were called tourists, then all of the eaters in Sioux Falls would certainly outweigh (literally) the more adventurous tourists hiking in the Badlands and cutting trees for fun in the Black Hills.
What is in the SE area of the state?
I have never thought of Aberdeen as a tourist area.
Last year, Yankton County generated more revenue from tourism and non-ag businesses than from it did from agriculture. You should have heard the squealing from the industrial baconators when that little factoid was dropped.
That, Cathy, is a really important point. G. Mark Mickelson said his CAFO clients were the only route to economic development for many counties. Yet Yankton County is drawing cash from tourism and other sources. That revenue would be endangered by stinking up the county with more factory hog farms… or at least by irresponsibly varianced and sited hog farms that aren’t required to properly manage their pollution.
Jenny, the SE area in this study includes Bon Homme, Clay, Davison, Douglas, Hanson, Hutchinson, Lake, Lincoln, McCook, Miner, Minnehaha, Turner, Union, and Yankton counties. Tourism-wise, that means Falls Park, Washington Pavilion, the Denny-Plex, and whatever else Sioux Falls offers, plus the Corn Palace, Prairie Village and the Steam Threshing Jamboree, Turner County Fair, Riverboat Days in Yankton, the Folk Fest at Newton Hills….
Nick, the study appears not to distinguish real tourists and visitors like you who drive a piece just for parts and a Wal-Mart run. The slides don’t offer detailed methodology, but Slide #26 says, “A visitor includes all overnight and day visitors—traveling outside of their usual environment, defined as beyond 50 miles.”
Is your “usual environment” a circle 50 miles out from home?
That definition would count folks driving from Madison or Brookings to Sioux Falls for groceries as visitors.
Slide #26 also says the study includes resident and non-resident travelers.
The study includes “shopping,” including “visitor spending within all retail sectors within the South Dakota economy.”
Liars figure and figures lie.
Visit a hospitalized, assisted living, nursing home bound relative – you might be a tourist. What fun!!
Visit the Big Sioux River trying your luck with ecoli; you might be a tourist.
Where or what is SE SD? I O W A.
What is the Black Hills and Badlands area doing wrong?
Since I don’t live there now and only vist a couple times annually, I am always struck by how cheap and tacky it looks as I drive in from the east on I 90. Those huge vertical billboards and the cheap crap tourist traps are such a massive turn off.
Other tourist areas I’ve visited are not so tawdry. Taos, New Mexico, has very limited signs. Northern Minnesota’s lakes, boreal forests and Lake Superior boom in the summer and advertising signs are few and far between. The Bighorn Mountain area in Wyoming is not beset by billboards either so the real beauty of the place can shine through.
A proliferative of signs is really not that necessary now because people plan their vacations online. The tourist spots need a robust website and placement on other sites, not all those crappy signs that denigrate the environment and diminish the tourist’s experience.
Billboards cover the city, many flashing blindingly bright L-E-D bulbs easily visible and standing out from Menards to glowing M Hill 5 miles away. We are starting to study dark sky necessity locally but Lawrence County did it almost two decades ago. Extremely aggressive signing on the highways is to capture bikers’ eyes, and the two million tourists heading to Yellowstone. Massive billboards literally fence-in I-90 between RC and the Wyo border. The tourism industry-sigh :)
I’m going to share this story, however, I can’t help but wonder how the authors did their data research. The largest tourism event in South Dakota and one of the biggest in the USA didn’t merit a mention.
Debbo nails it- there is tacky and then there is South Dakota tacky. Maybe it is Martian type tacky?
Doreen makes an astute observation. In support of her point I notice that Meade county is not even listed in the “per-worker direct tourism income” chart. Don’t the workers that serve around a half million attendees at the annual Sturgis Rally get paid?
I’ve always been embarrassed of the tacky tourist signs and I agree with Debbo about driving into rapid city from I90 East and how messy and run down everything looks. Clean up Rapid city, tear down all the big pathetic tourism signs along I 90. Looks very unappealing and I have had out of state people tell me they were surprised with how rundown Rapid City looked. He said to me “I drove eight hours to see this?
Why has RC never tackled its image problem?
True, Doreen, the slides don’t mention the Rally or several other specific events or destinations. However, the stats do show Meade County enjoying over $52 million in visitor spending last year. Does that sound accurate? The state reported $1.29M in sales tax revenue from 2018 Rally vendors, which divided by 4.5% means $28.7M in sales.
BCB, Meade County didn’t make my top-tourism workforce chart because they support fewer than 400 direct tourism jobs. The slides’ methodology does not clarify how it counts those jobs, so I don’t know if 20 Rally jobs count as 1 full-time direct job or what. But with 349 direct jobs listed and $8.42 million in direct labor income from tourism (less than half of what is paid in Custer County), Meade county does post average annual per-worker tourism income of $24,100, better than the state average and the Pennington County average, but still less than Minnehaha, Custer, and Lawrence.