Tourism before all else?

Since I starting blogging just a short time ago I have read a lot about the importance of the tourism industry to the Garrett County economy. The editor of the Republican, a number of the Deep Creek real estate blogs and many people I know in Garrett County consider tourism to be the key driver of the local economy. While many state this matter-of-factly few, if any, actually show proof that it is, in fact, true.

The other day while I was browsing around looking for some facts on Garrett County I ran across the following Garrett County employment data from 2006 on the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development website.



As I mentioned, the table shows job and wage data for all of Garrett County in 2006. Now, I want to draw your attention to a particular category in the data, Leisure and Hospitality. These are jobs generally associated with tourism and more tourism brings more leisure and hospitality jobs, but is this actually good for Garrett County? I would contend that the answer to that question is no. Despite being large in number, these jobs are by far the lowest average wage jobs available in the county and are not the jobs people can raise a family on or the jobs that will keep Garrett County's young people from leaving the area in search of better jobs.

Now consider some of the other categories such a manufacturing and state jobs. We hear a lot about tourism development being essential to the local economy but where are the efforts to bring high-paying (at least relative to leisure and hospitality) manufacturing jobs to the county? Some time ago a local real estate agent suggested on his blog that bringing a state prison to the Oakland area would be bad for Garrett County because it might hurt tourism. I would contend that it would actually bring well paying state jobs to the county. Jobs that people could support a family on and stay in Garrett County full-time and buy homes and contribute to the local community in a positive manner. The WCI facility near Cumberland employs some 550 people, some of whom are current or former residents of Garrett County. These kind of state jobs by their very nature have to be located somewhere in the state of Maryland so why not welcome them to the area instead of shunning them in favor of low paying leisure and hospitality jobs? Surely, the county could trade a few tourists for a significant number of good jobs.

So what's the point here? The point is the people of Garrett County should be VERY wary of putting tourism before everything else or considering everything in terms of what it means to the tourism industry. A few weeks ago I was in Atlantic City, NJ and was amazed by the number of tourists there were on the beach and in the casinos (despite the fact that they have wind turbines visible from the beaches I might add). But even more striking was the absolute poverty just steps from the boardwalk where all the tourists were. That is when it dawned on me that all those workers on the boardwalk are working in what would be considered leisure and hospitality jobs or retail jobs, most likely earning minimum wage and living in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods nearby. So while the tourists have a good time and land barons rake in huge profits, the local people suffer (Atlantic City or Garrett County, take your pick).

In short, these leisure and hospitality jobs are not the jobs that Garrett County should be aiming to attract and I would hope that the leaders of the county aren't selling out its citizens in favor of the tourists! Afterall, there can be a balance and it doesn't have to be one or the other. Unfortunately as I see it now, it is tourism before all else (or maybe I've just read too many real estate blogs). Show me I am wrong Garrett County.

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