Tourism

At a meeting held earlier this week in Washington, D.C., Indigenous leaders discussed ways to bring in federal support to develop tourism on native lands. Organizers also discussed tools and resources available to Indigenous entrepreneurs looking to get involved.

Tourism is big business in Idaho, but quantifying just how big that business is can be tricky.

National Park Service locations report how many people visit, how much tourists spend and how many jobs that creates every year. In 2021, those visitors spent more than $20 billion.

They signed onto a letter that calls on the National Park Service to extend reservation windows up to a year out.

The recent flooding around Yellowstone National Park also created challenges for gateway towns like Gardner, Red Lodge and Cooke City in Montana. That includes lost homes and possibly lost livelihoods. For travelers who can no longer access the park through those towns, there’s another Montana entrance: West Yellowstone, the most popular gateway to the park.

Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey is closing today through May 17 for a major runway rehabilitation project.

Tourists spend over $100 million each year in southern Utah’s Kane County, but it’s the workers who keep the businesses running who pay a high price.

Now flying over the majority of the city requires a special transmitter. To avoid this air space, companies have canceled flights when the wind may blow the them into restricted air space or they're launching outside the city.

Ketchum is considering adding community housing to that list of local option tax expenses.

As people flocked to mountain towns like Sun Valley during the pandemic, local tourism and economic development leaders wondered who these newcomers were, where they were coming from and whether they’d stay.