The tourism industry in Utah will continue to grow over the next decade as the state readies for the 2034 Winter Olympics, a fact sheet released in the hours before the Games were expected to be awarded to Salt Lake City maintains.
The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah released the fact sheet on Tuesday with the International Olympic Committee likely to award the Games of 2034 to Salt Lake City on Wednesday during meetings in Paris on the eve of the Summer Olympics in the French capital.
In an important statement for the Park City area, the fact sheet predicts people visiting the state in 2034 “will find a much larger tourism economy than in 2002,” a reference to the earlier Winter Olympics held in the state 22 years ago.
The fact sheet says people visiting Utah in 2022 spent $11.8 billion, a record and a jump from the $7.7 billion spent during 2002. It says skier-days and visits to national parks “were more than twice as large in 2022 than in 2002.”
“Protecting the quality of the visitor experience will need to be a major focus of state leaders as we approach the 2034 games,” the fact sheet says.
The institute, meanwhile, says “Utah has firmly established itself as a winter sports capital.” It notes that facilities like the Utah Olympic Park have been maintained in the years since the Winter Olympics and continue to attract visitors from outside of Utah.
“The Utah economy will be nearly twice the size of 2002 and feature a much larger tourism sector, more international engagement, improved infrastructure, and a robust winter sports economy,” the fact sheet says.
The statements about the projected growth of the tourism industry are important for Park City and surrounding Summit County since the sector drives the local economy. The ski industry attracts large crowds to Park City in the winter, while cultural and outdoors pursuits draw people to the community in the summer and fall. Tourism in Park City is important to the statewide industry, with the community internationally recognized as a mountain destination.
The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute fact sheet, though, could become additional evidence for people worried about the impact of the growth of tourism on Park City. There have long been complaints about traffic, parking shortages and crowded slopes in Park City, and the worries seemed to intensify as the community’s economy emerged from the depths of the pandemic with broad resiliency.
The prospects of a significant increase in tourism after the Winter Olympics in 2034 have been mentioned over the years of discussions about the possibility of hosting a second Winter Olympics in the state. The topic, though, has not been heavily debated in Park City recently.
The Park City area would be crucial to a second Games, as was the case in 2002. Three competition venues — Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park — are identified on the concept map for 2034. The community would also be key to the transportation, celebration and security planning.