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By Jon Styff

The Center Square

The Tennessee Department of Tourism Development again claimed the state had a record amount of visitor spending in 2023 based on numbers in a commissioned report from marketing firm Tourism Economics.

Each year, state tourism departments, including Tennessee, pay the firm and it produces numbers those departments then use to justify tax dollar spending in future budgets.

Economists say that the numbers are not credible.

“I think it’s important to be skeptical of any for-hire economic impact report that is commissioned by a tourism agency that has an interest in showing a large impact from tourism,” economist J.C. Bradbury of Georgia’s Kennesaw State University said of previous reports from Tourism Economics.

Tourism Economics is the same group that was hired by the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp to present numbers to the fair board while the Nashville mayor’s office pushed for more than $100 million in public funding for significant changes at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, with the marketing group claiming the speedway has a $5.3 billion direct spending impact and an $8 billion “economic impact” on Davidson County.

Tourism Economics claimed visitors to the state spent $30.6 billion in 2023, which averages out to $84 million per day and led to $3.2 billion of state and local tax collections in 2023.

That included $1.9 billion in state taxes and $1.25 billion in city and local government taxes.

Bradbury has often pointed out that there is a reason economic impact reports are not submitted for peer review, something that occurs with valid economic studies, because the reports do not accurately depict how an exchange of finances occurs.