Rogue Valley Travel Impacts 2024
August 14, 2025Preliminary data for 2024 from a Dean Runyan Associates study for the Oregon Tourism Commission shows that total direct travel spending in Oregon rose 1.1% in 2024 compared with the 2023 total. Travel spending rose from $14.15 billion in 2023 to $14.3 billion in 2024, an inflation-adjusted increase of 1.0%. Adjusted for inflation, Oregon’s total direct travel spending was 6% below the 2019 pre-pandemic total. Travel -related employment, which declined by about 21% from 2019 to 2020 had recovered those jobs in two years, rising slightly above the pre-pandemic total to reach 120,500 in 2023. In 2024 travel-related employment grew slightly, up by 480 jobs or 0.4%.
Inflation Adjusted Spending Yet to Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels
Jackson County travel nominal spending has recovered from a low of $363.9 million during the pandemic in 2020, reaching $627.1 million in 2021. By 2024, spending increased to $730 million, a gain of 0.8% from the 2023 total, in Jackson County. In real or inflation-adjusted dollars, Jackson County direct travel spending was about $38.8 million below the pre-pandemic 2019 total.
Food service ($185 million) and accommodations ($132.9 million) combined to account for just less than one-half of travel spending in Jackson County last year. Local transportation and gas ($68.5 million); retail sales ($66.8 million); food store spending ($56.8 million); and arts, entertainment and recreation ($49.3 million) made up most of the rest of Jackson County travel spending in 2024.
Travel spending rose from $86.6 million in 2020 to $172.1 million by 2024 in Josephine County, accounting for 1.3% of all Oregon travel spending. Travel spending was essentially flat between 2022 through 2024. Direct travel spending in 2024 was $30.7 million more than 2019 pre-pandemic total in Josephine County according to these preliminary estimates. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this is a decline of about $1 million dollars in real travel spending since 2019.
Food service ($53.1 million) and accommodations ($35.6 million) combined to account for one-half of travel spending in Josephine County last year. Retail sales ($20.8 million); food store spending ($18.9 million); local transportation and gas ($15.6 million); and arts, entertainment and recreation ($14.8 million) made up most of the rest of Josephine County travel spending in 2024.
Travel Related Employment Down in 2024
Travel spending in Jackson County was attributed to 5,630 jobs in 2024, down 0.2% from the prior year. After losing an estimated 1,040 jobs during the pandemic in 2020, the county had regained all but about 200 of the lost travel generated jobs by 2022. Travel-related employment was essentially unchanged from 2022 through 2024. Industry employment generated by travel spending had a similar distribution as overall travel spending by industry. About 70% of all travel-generated employment was in the accommodations and food services industry. Approximately one-in-seven travel-generated jobs were in the arts, entertainment and recreation industry, and 9% were in the retail trade sector.
Travel spending was attributed to 2,030 jobs in Josephine County in 2024, down 3.3% from the prior year. After losing an estimated 230 jobs during the pandemic in 2020, the county regained those jobs and was 130 jobs above that pre-pandemic total by 2022. Over the past two years, the county lost about 130 travel-related jobs. Industry employment generated by travel spending had a similar distribution as overall travel spending by industry. About two-thirds of all travel-generated employment was in the accommodations and food services industry. Approximately one-in-five travel-generated jobs were in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector, and one out of 10 jobs were in the retail trade sector.
Tax Revenue up in 2024
Tax revenue, mostly from lodging taxes and income tax payments attributable to travel industry income of businesses and employees, totaled $31.4 million in 2024 in Jackson county. Local tax revenues increased by 1.9% in 2024, while state tax revenue attributable to travel spending rose from about $18.0 million in 2023 to about $18.8 million in 2024, a 2.2% increase. There were just more than 5.5 million person-night overnight visitor stays in Jackson County in 2024, according to preliminary estimates.
Josephine County tax revenue totaled $7.6 million in 2024. Local tax revenues increased 0.5% to $1.9 million in 2024, while state tax revenue attributable to travel spending rose 0.8% to about $5.6 million in 2024. There were just over 2 million overnight visitor stays in Josephine County in 2024, according to preliminary estimates, just eclipsing the pre-pandemic 2019 total of about 1,971,000 “person-nights” according to Dean Runyan and Associates data.
While some don’t consider travel and tourism as an “export-oriented” industry, the Dean Runyan Associates report does a nice job of detailing why this sector does fit the criteria of an export-oriented industry, due to the influx of resources that flow into an economy from outside of the region. The travel impact report states that the gross domestic product of the travel industry was $7.2 billion in 2024, accounting for 2% of Oregon’s total GDP. Overall, the travel industry is one of the three largest export-oriented industries in rural Oregon counties with the other two being agriculture/food processing and logging/wood products.
To see the entire report go to: Travel Impacts Oregon, 2024
Interactive tables and other Oregon data from the Oregon Tourism Commission: https://industry.traveloregon.com/research/category/all-research/.