Adventure Tourism Park System

Over 1,081,000 individuals participate in wildlife viewing birdwatching in Kentucky creating 11,481 jobs and generating over $600,000,000 dollars for our economy.
The number of participants and jobs created has increased 20% and 18% respectively since 1996 making it one of the fastest growing "industries" in Kentucky.
Across the U.S., there are over 66,100,000 participants generating $48,400,000,000 in revenue.

If these expenditures were the annual sales revenue of a particular company with a total of $38.4 billion in sales, this company would rank 34th on the Fortune 500 list, just ABOVE Dell Computer ($35.4 billion), UPS ($31.2 billion) adn Microsoft ($28.3 billion).

The above are direct expenditures. The total economic impact is two times this or $1,203,100,000 for Kentucky and $76,800,000,000 for the United States!

*The above statistics came from 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting & Wildlife Associated Recreation.

2000 Bugle Tour Survey Data

In 2000, 350 people signed up and participated in Bugle Tours. The tours lasted for seven weekends. 117 tour participants completed surveys with the following results.

Participants were from: IN, KY, OH, TN and WV

Males: 59

Females: 56

Age range: 15 to 75 with an average age of 46 (23 non responses)

Income range: $10,000 to $135,000 with the average being $45,430 (45 non responses)

Miles traveled to get to site: 136 on average ranged from 2 miles to 450 miles

71 (64%) stayed overnight:
37 (53%) stayed in a motel
2 (3%) with family or friend,
1% at Jenny Wiley State Park
24 (34%) at Buckhorn State Park
2 (3%) camped
4 (6%) didn’t give a response
30 (49%) stayed 1 night

30 (49%) stayed 2 nights

1 (2%) stayed 3 nights

Average spent on motel: $77.30 (57 responses)

$34.86 average spent on overall food expenses (80 responses)

$58.16 average spent on overall lodging (62 responses)

$140.00 average spent on overall equipment (34 responses)

$25.09 average spent on overall gas (79 responses)

$258.11 average spent overall x 63.75 responses on average = $16,454.51 of just those who responded

$29.34 average spent on local food (69 responses)

$49.86 average spent on local lodging (56 responses)

$27.00 average spent on local equipment (26 responses)

$16.12 average spent on local gas (51 responses)

$122.32 average spent locally x 50.5 responses on average = $6,177.16 of just those who responded

3.4 average size of group

32% hunted in last 12 months

68% had not hunted in the last 12 months

48% had fished in the last 12 months

52% had not fished in the last 12 months

40% heard about the tour via newspaper

26% from a friend/family member

7% from television

7% from KDFWR publication

5% from magazine article

4% from KDFWR website

1% from radio.