Thanks to the release of a new app, people seeking information on Arizona’s travel industry can now access data quickly and easily on their smart phone or iPad. The Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) is the first state travel office in the United States to launch an app of this kind – one that provides quality, reliable mobile data on the impact of Arizona’s tourism industry on the state’s economy and its residents.
Arizona Travel Impacts, the new mobile version of AOT’s annually published “Arizona Travel Impacts” report, breaks down visitor spending, jobs, direct earnings, and tax receipts generated by the travel industry by state, region, county, and legislative district. The free app includes historical data dating back to 1998 and is available for download on iPhone, iPad and Android devices at tourism.az.gov/research-statistics/economic-impact via Apple’s App Store and Google Play. The data is updated annually.
“Communicating the importance of the travel industry on our state’s economy is critical for us,” said Sherry Henry, director of AOT. “We are thrilled to be at the forefront of providing important and interesting tourism and travel data to stakeholders in an innovative and accessible way through this app.”
After downloading the Arizona Travel Impacts app, users can easily access information by clicking on the map to identify a particular county or other geographic area, and then selecting their desired data category from drop-down menus along the top of the screen. All information is presented in clear, colorful graphs and maps, and more detail is available by tapping the screen to select a given year. In just seconds, a user can learn the number of retail jobs generated in Coconino County in 2008 (1,090 jobs) or the statewide spending in campgrounds in 1998 (more than $380 million).
The impact of tourism to the Grand Canyon State is quite significant. Arizona’s warm weather and exceptional beauty help make tourism one of the state’s top export industries. In 2013, 33.8 million people visited Arizona, and those visitors collectively spent $19.8 billion in the state. The money spent by visitors supports jobs and generates tax revenue, saving every Arizona household $1,100 each year in taxes.
The Arizona Travel Impacts app data is valuable to AOT’s constituents, including members of the media, legislators, tourism partners, destination marketing organizations, statewide economic representatives, businesses and community leaders along with municipal and state officials. AOT created the app in partnership with Dean Runyan Associates, Inc., a market research firm based in Portland, Ore., that has assisted the organization with reliable travel research since 2004.
