Report: Most Montanans agree tourism benefits outweigh negative impacts

Yahoo

2 days ago

A NPS ranger monitors a packed parking lot at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. (Image via NPS)
The percentage of Montanans who believe the benefits of tourism outweigh the negative impacts held steady from last year, but residents feel local communities are becoming more overcrowded, according to a report released in April by the University of Montana Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR).
The report, 'Montana Residents: Attitudes Towards Tourism 2024,' is the latest survey posing a set of questions to Montanans over the last 30 years regarding their attitudes toward visitors. Overall, 68% of respondents to the 2024 survey agreed that the benefits of tourism outweigh the negative impacts, in line with last year's 69%.
However, it was just the fourth time less than 70% of Montanans have expressed a positive attitude toward out-of-state visitors. The lowest recorded positive attitude (52%) was in 2001, which researchers attributed to the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. The second-lowest finding was in 2022, which followed record-breaking visitation after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the ITRR report, residents of Montana's Glacier Country tourism region, which covers the state's eight westernmost counties, remained the least likely to see tourism as a benefit, but that sentiment climbed for the second year in a row.
However, that region of the state is also seeing a drastic visitation change this year, as visits from Canadians are down, following President Donald Trump's threats to make the neighbor the 51st state, and prompting targeted marketing from Montana.
Residents in Central Montana saw the largest increase in positive sentiment, up to 70%, while residents of Southeast and Southwest Montana dropped their views on visitors.
'In general, Montana residents held a positive yet balanced attitude toward tourism within the state,' the report said. 'A majority of residents feel that the benefits of tourism outweigh the negative impacts, while also being in strong agreement that tourism promotion by the state provides an economic benefit to their community.'
In Montana out-of-state visitors spent nearly $5 billion in 2024, contributing to the state's robust outdoor recreation economy.
However, the state was split on other nuanced views about tourism.
Forty-two percent of respondents said they felt the state was becoming overcrowded from tourists, while the same percent disagreed with that statement. Compared to 2021 — one of the most crowded years for tourism in Montana — significantly fewer respondents (14%) felt overcrowding was an issue.
On a local level, more residents felt their communities were becoming overcrowded by tourists, with 47% responding that during the summer travel season they were seeing too many visitors. While that represented a 7% increase from the 2023 survey, the report notes that the responses heavily varied by region.
Yellowstone Country and Glacier Country, the tourism regions associated with their eponymous national parks, 72% and 67% of respondents, respectively, felt tourists were overcrowding their communities. In contrast, only 23% of Central Montana respondents and 12% from Missouri River Country had the same sentiment.
The survey also asked respondents if they felt the overall quality of life for Montana residents would improve if tourism were to increase. Overall, 35% of Montanans said that quality of life would improve with increased tourism, compared to 38% who felt it would decrease.
Interactive data from the 2024 Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research can be viewed here.
As the region with historically the most negative attitude towards tourism, Glacier Country, officials working to promote western Montana have worked to change the way they market the area.
The Glacier Country Regional Tourism Commission is a nonprofit that partners with Western Montana communities to 'welcome visitors and support livelihoods while protecting quality of life, extraordinary outdoor resources, and cultural heritage.'
Following droves of pandemic-era tourists in 2021, Glacier Country Tourism held a series of community meetings to discuss how to shift their marketing approach to a more sustainable model for communities. A new long-term collaborative 'Destination Stewardship Strategy' was launched aimed at promoting smaller communities that wanted more visitors while pulling back from some mainstream destination marketing centered around Glacier National Park and Whitefish – core economic anchors for the region's tourism industry.
Another set of community listening events was held in 2024, and Glacier Country Tourism President Racene Friede said many of the conversations showed their strategies had accomplished many of the goals.
'Tensions towards tourists were still a little high, but we came out of a lot of those community meetings feeling like one, we really heard what people were thinking deep down, and we also were able to make sure these communities felt like they were being heard,' Friede said. 'It felt very validating to the work we'd done after what we heard in 2021.'
One nuance Friede said she discussed with many communities across Western Montana was the issue of overcrowding, which she said isn't perfectly correlated with increasing numbers of tourists.
'Those tourists are here, but they're also mixed with a lot of new residents, and that means there's more new people in the community, year round,' she said. 'Some audiences were really interesting to talk with when they extracted that particular point.'
Recent census data shows that Kalispell has been one of the fastest growing cities in the nation since 2020, with most western counties seeing significant growth as well.
While Friede said these regular community input sessions help shape long-term visitation and marketing strategies for the region, the Tourism Commission also responds to short term changes to visitor patterns.
'Weirdly,' she said, the region is looking at a shortfall of visitors at the moment, mostly from a decrease in Canadian travel due to inflammatory rhetoric between the federal government and the neighbors to the north.
'Over 50% of the businesses that replied to a survey I sent out said business is down compared to last year at this point,' Friede said. 'The closer you are to the border, the more businesses are feeling it, and they're really worried.'
'It's a whole different world this year than we expected to see,' she added.
Friede said the commission recently launched a short-term marketing campaign targeting Canadian cities near Montana, promoting it as a weekend destination.
'I wasn't even thinking about that six weeks ago,' she said. 'But we're focused on people over politics, letting the Canadian people know that we're here when they're ready to visit, and we can't wait to welcome them back.'
She said the organization being nimble and able to react and respond to different local needs throughout the year is essential.
'We can't control who's coming here, but we can control what role we play and how they impact our local communities,' Friede said.