OUTDOOR RECREATION

• The Outdoor Industry Association calculated that outdoor recreation by out-of-state visitors brought $2.27 billion and 48,000 jobs to South Dakota in 2017. A survey that year also found that 69% of South Dakotans participate in Outdoor recreation
  
  

• Direct spending on hunting in the Black Hills is approximately $89 million a year. • According to the South Dakota Dashboard, the total gross sales revenue for Pennington County in 2016 was $6.6 billion. The highest grossing sectors were retail trade and services – both related to tourism.

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  According to Tourism Economics, Pennington County received 19.8% of all visitor spending in South Dakota in 2018.
  
  

• 2018 research by Harvard economists found that the economic benefits of proposed mining in a Minnesota national forest would be outweighed by negative impacts on outdoor recreation and in-migration. Over 20 years, preserving the national forest would mean 4,500 more jobs and up to $900 million more in personal income than would mining.