Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
2007 Annual International CHRIE Conference & Exposition 
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Williams (1981), lacked extensive data collection necessary for conducting a comprehensive economic impact study 
of the area.
The results of a study conducted by the Southeastern Research Institute (1990) suggested that almost $1.3 
billion was brought into the economies of corridor counties. These expenditures generated approximately $98 
million in tax revenues, and supported over 26,500 jobs. The results of the 1990 Parkway study reported only the 
direct effect of Parkway visitor expenditures. Nonetheless, these three studies reflect the positive effects of the 
economic impacts of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Due to limitations of previous Blue Ridge Parkway studies: 1) only 
applying economic theories without data collection (such as Williams and Knoeber, 1979; Williams, 1981), and 2) 
only estimating the direct impact of travel to the Parkway without region definition (such as Southeastern Research 
Institute 1990), Chen (1996) conducted a comprehensive EIA study to overcome limitations of previous EIA studies 
of the Blue Ridge Parkway. 
This case study presented here was designed to explore the possibility of integrating an economic impact 
assessment model with forecasting methods. The study inflated existed visitor spending profiles, employed the 
IMPLAN (IMpact analysis for PLANning) system to estimate the direct, indirect, and induced impacts of travel to 
the Parkway, utilized the approaches of deflation and inflation, and used forecasted visitation figures to estimate 
magnitude of future impacts.