Tourism is big business with big benefits.
Among the biggest benefits that tourism offers to the area
is the number of jobs that our industry
provides. Not only does our industry provide full time
jobs at such places as the area hotels, restaurants, and museums
and amusements, we also provide part time and seasonal jobs.
The variety of types of jobs in tourism make it difficult
to accurately report our jobs, as they aren't all credited
to travel and tourism. As an example, we are sure that grape
pie makers in Naples are not counted in tourism, but we know
that producing nearly 70,000 pies a year takes a good deal
of labor and supports a number of our county's families. We
know that tour guides and related support staff at wineries
are counted as manufacturing jobs. We know that artists -
nearly 250 of them work in our area - aren't generally viewed
as tourism related jobs. So you can imagine how many more
"tourism jobs" there are out there than the number we are
able to illustrate in these charts. No matter how "undercounted"
we feel, we are able to compare apples to apples in terms
of growth. We are very proud of the job growth we've been
able to illustrate in our industry. In 1984, the first year
that Finger Lakes Visitors Connection began its work, there
were 337 units reporting travel and tourism jobs totaling
3,504 jobs with a payroll of $23,837,900.
