Tracking the Money

The Government Performance and Results Act (1993) Value-added outcomes (not outputs) Performance Measurement GPRA requires that each federal agency produce strategic plans that cover at least five years. Intended to be the starting point for each agencys performance measurement efforts, these strategic plans should: 1. Include the agencys mission statement 2. Identify the agency's long-term strategic goals 3. Describe how the agency intends to achieve those goals through its activities and through its human, capital, information, and other resources.

Money Generation Model- Version 2 MGM2 is a set of Microsoft Excel workbooks for estimating the economic impacts of NPS visitor spending on a local region. MGM2 is an update of the NPS Money Generation Model as originally developed by Ken Hornback. Daniel Stynes and Dennis Propst at Michigan State University developed the new version, called MGM2, in MGM2 estimates the impacts that park visitors have on the local economy in terms of their contribution to sales, income and jobs in the area. The Money Generation Model produces quantifiable measures of park economic benefits that can be used for planning, concessions management, budget justifications, policy analysis and marketing.

What Does MGM2 do Evaluates management, policy and marketing alternatives, both inside and outside the park. Economic impact information has proven quite helpful in fostering partnerships within the community and garnering support for park policies and interests. The economic analysis also helps to identify the roles the park, local community and tourism businesses play in attracting and serving visitors.

Economic impacts Economic impacts are estimated in terms of the sales, income, jobs, and value added within the local region resulting from visitor spending. Direct effects occur in businesses that sell goods and services directly to park visitors. – Secondary effects represent impacts from the circulation of the spending within the local economy (so called, multiplier effects), including both indirect and induced effects. Sales represents receipts by local businesses. – Direct sales will be less than visitor spending as only the retail margin portion of goods purchased at retail usually accrue to the local area. Personal income covers wages and salaries including payroll benefits, jobs include both full time and part time jobs but adjust seasonal jobs to annual equivalents, value added is a measure of the total income to the region including wages and salaries to employees, profits and rents to businesses, and sales and other indirect business taxes accruing to government units

Visitor Segments Visits, spending and impacts are broken down into four visitor segments with distinct spending patterns: a. Locals are residents of the local area, b. Non-local day trips are visitors on trips from outside the local region, not staying overnight in the area. Visitors staying in owned seasonal homes or with friends and relatives are treated as non-local day visitors to the park, as they do not incur lodging expenses. Travelers on extended trips not staying overnight in the local area are also included here, c. Hotel and camping segments are visitors who are staying overnight in the local area either inside or outside the park.

Limitations of this accounting method While every effort has been made to adjust for known errors in any of the inputs to the MGM2 model, potential errors in the estimates may be due to a. Double counting of visitors who re-enter the park during a single trip or other errors in the recreation visit estimates, b. Errors in the estimates of the percentages of visitors by segment (many parks lack accurate estimates of the percentages of visitors who are local residents, on day trips to the region, or are staying overnight in the area outside the park, and for many others the estimates are based on small samples of park visitors during a single season), c. Errors in generalizing spending profiles from one park or season to another – only a small percentage of parks have conducted visitor spending surveys, although spending profiles within segments are reasonably consistent across parks in similar settings, and d. For most parks, the MGM2 model employs generic multipliers based on the characteristics of the surrounding region. These multipliers are grounded in input-output models estimated with the IMPLAN system and have proven quite reliable in applications to individual parks.

Fredericksburg-Chancellorsville National Battlefield Park

Alternate explanation The reported impacts should be interpreted as the expected loss in economic activity within the region if the park were closed. All visitor spending is included for trips where the park is the primary reason for the trip, while only the additional spending for the park visit is counted for multi- purpose trips that would still occur in the absence of the park. Attributions of which visits and spending might be lost to the region is another potential source of error, as many parks have not broached this question.

Economic Impact Concepts An economic impact analysis estimates the changes in economic activity within a region resulting from some action 1. Economic impact methodsEconomic impact methods 2. Attributing impacts to the action being evaluated 3. Input-Output Analysis Terminology 4. input-output models 5. Secondary effects of visitor spending are of two types: indirect and induced.

Whats new? Model Updates : Added 2007 price indices to MITEIM and MGM2 models and converted to NAICS basis with 2001 generic multipliers. Added a "Quick Start" page to MITEIM manual. These models download as Excel files and include macros that must be enabled when opening to work properly. MITEIMQuick Start