A recent study shows the impact of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s superlatives go beyond being the most visited national park in the system. It tops the other 397 parks in visitor spending, with a total that’s almost twice as high as its closes rival.

In 2010, the park had 9.4 million visitors and they spent $818 million in neighboring communities, supporting 11,367 local jobs, according to the study. The Grand Canyon National Park had 4.4 million visitors and the spent $416 million.

“This study clearly demonstrates the economic benefits that communities located near national parks receive," said Dale Ditmanson, superintendent of the park.

The spending estimates in the study were derived from a money generation model that begins with a park’s visitation, party size, length of stay and proportion of non-local visitors. The statistics were combined with locally indexed cost estimates for restaurants, lodging, amusements, locally purchased fuel and transportation, and retail spending.

The study does not break down the data by individual community — it doesn’t provide data on how much the park meant individually for Sevier County in particular, or for the local cities.

But Sevier County remains the primary route into the park, and the information drives home for local officials just how much the park means to the area’s tourism-driven economy.

“That’s exciting news when you read that release but it’s not surprising when you know it’s the most visited park,” said Leon Downey, director of tourism for Pigeon Forge.

That was the hope of the local businesspeople and residents who pushed to create the park, added Vicki Sims, director of the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce.

“(They) saw the vision of what having a national park in your backyard can do for you,” she said.

The growth of all the gateway communities in the park is a testament to the park’s popularity, she added.

Downey noted the Great Smoky Mountains are part of the attraction even for people who come to visit the area and don’t go into the park itself.

“When they say where they visited they don’t say Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, or Sevierville, they say they came to the Smokies,” he said. "It’s an economic magnet not just for here, but for East Tennessee.”

And that, Sims added, is why local communities need to work to ensure the park is maintained and preserved.

“We love our national park and we certainly need to take care of it and look after it,” she said.

The entire study can be viewed online at www.nature/nps.gov/socialscience/docs/NPSSystemEstimates2010.pdf.

jfarrell@themountainpress.com