Airport lifts regional economy
A yearlong study on the economic value of Spokane’s airport says the facility’s net impact comes to around $896 million a year.
The study released Wednesday by the Eastern Washington University Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis tracked five broad areas of impact: operations, capital spending, tenants, visitors and the airport business park.
Across all five areas the research looked at the direct impact from salaries paid, sales generated and local jobs created because of airport activity.
The report, which took a year to complete, included research on how much money is spent by visitors arriving here by air and spending time in either Eastern Washington or North Idaho.
“We were asked to answer something that hasn’t been done before,” said EWU institute Director Patrick Jones — “that is how much the airport contributes to the area’s economy.”
EWU economists David Bunting and Mark Wagner focused on Kootenai and Spokane counties during fiscal year 2005, because the two areas are the largest users of the Spokane airport.
About $40,000 was spent on the study. Roughly half that money went to Strategic Research Associates of Spokane, which conducted three surveys of airport visitors to assess how much was spent during a stay.
That component estimated the average visitor’s spending while here was $543, said Jones. The net impact in the fiscal 2005 year of airport visitors comes to $266.8 million.
At the same time, the study avoids stating that the airport has sole claim on that impact. “Other industries, especially those in tourism and convention sales, play a significant role in attracting visitors,” the study said.
The total number of direct jobs associated with the airport is 8,033. That includes all on-site jobs, jobs created by tenants such as restaurants, car rental firms and food booths, and construction crews and jobs at companies in the business park.
The sum of those wages from direct jobs comes to roughly $200 million, the study found.
EWU’s study also looked at indirect and “induced” benefits that derive from visitors, operations and business park activity. The indirect impact was $162 million in both communities; the induced impact was $200 million, according to the study. Induced benefits derive from spending on goods and wages by workers and others in a community who don’t work at the airport but are benefiting from its economic activity.
Economists used a multiplier effect to measure how money spent directly at or by the airport create indirect and induced benefits.
Todd Woodard, the airport’s communication director, said the study will serve as a benchmark so that future studies can track changes in impact over time.
Jones also noted that the visitor data was subjective and based on individual estimates of money spent during visits. “If anything, they probably under-estimated the amount of money they spent while in the area. I know I always look at my credit card (after a trip) and find it’s more than I thought it would be.”