Cabinet of Tourism, Arts and Heritage Secretary Don Parkinson recently announced that Kentucky’s tourism industry has experienced the strongest overall economic impact rate the state has seen since 2009. All nine of the state’s tourism regions registered gains for 2015 compared with 2014.
Locally, Graves County saw an increase of almost 5% in direct and total expenditures from 2014 to 2015. That has equated into over 3.5% more jobs directly related to travel and tourism in Mayfield and Graves County.
Kentucky’s tourism industry generated $13.7 billion in economic impact during 2015, an increase of five percent over the previous year. The industry supported more than 186,000 jobs, including 6,200 jobs created in 2015.
Kentucky tourism generated more than $1.43 billion in taxes, with $184.9 million going directly to local communities. These are the strongest overall numbers the Commonwealth has seen in the past 10 years.