A report has unveiled that tourists spent more money in Flathead County than anywhere else in the state. According to an average over two years, monitored by economists at the University of Montana, spending by non-residents between 2022 and 2023 in the Flathead Valley was over $1 billion and close to $2 billion in the travel region of Glacier County.
This is good news for residents of Kalispell, which is the county seat of Flathead County. News like this can be spread throughout a county and region with flyer printing.
Spending in Glacier County alone was 11 percentage points above that of Yellowstone County, which was in second place. For the past 15 years, visitors have concentrated near Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and the two counties—Glacier and Yellowstone—have accounted for 57 percent of all travel expenditures by non-residents.
Assistant director of economic analysis at the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR) at the University of Montana, Kara Grau, said she was not surprised by this news as there is a lot of traffic from visitors to the Glacier County and the region. She said that Glacier alone has received 34 percent of the non-resident spending in the state.
The $1 billion spent in Flathead County supported $778.9 million of economic activity and an additional $630.6 million of economic activity indirectly.
