I read an article headline yesterday claiming that it would generate $6 billion in economic output due to tourism. That would far outweigh the lost productivity.
I think that number has been seriously inflated too. I was in the path of totality here in Terre Haute, IN. Traffic was normal the whole time before and after the eclipse. I didn’t go right downtown, but we went to a park with an advertised event going on and where people from other parts of the country were coming, but it wasn’t really any more full than if they had done it during the summer.
Nearby Bloomington, IN was expecting 500,000 people. They had a special event with Mae Jemson, William Shatner and Janelle Monae. They have IU Memorial Stadium there, which is designed to handle major Big 10 football games. In the photo I saw, it was maybe a quarter full and that’s being generous.
The eclipse was on a Monday and most kids didn’t have the day off from school unless they were at least close to the path of totality. The tourism boom did not appear.
That’s sad to read. The total eclipse of my lifetime was in 1999 and my place was bang in the middle of the corridor of the umbral shadow. It was truly a spectacular event. Schools and most work places were closed for that day and my godfather just told his boss “I’m not coming in, fire me, I don’t care” lol (he didn’t get fired)
Not to defend bosses here, because I would absolutely let people off for the eclipse, but I can see why a boss in, say, Iowa would not be cool with all of their employees taking a day trip to the other side of Illinois to see the path of totality. A lot of them just wouldn’t get it. And if you can’t take your kid out of school anyway, it doesn’t really matter.
Yeah and the town I went to literally had cars parked along every single street. I can only speak for myself, but I didn’t spend a single dime there. We brought a lunch and snacks and I was thinking of getting dinner while out but seeing how busy it was, I decided instead to gtfo of town before everyone else decided it was time to get on the road, basically a minute or two after totality ended. It was a “see something cool in nature” thing rather than a “go spend money” thing for me. I wouldn’t be surprised if it costed the region more money in police overtime than it brought in in tourist dollars. Though regions on the way there might have seen higher speeding ticket revenue, at least until the line of cars saturated to the point where no one was speeding (and turning left if you were going the other way would be difficult).
I read an article headline yesterday claiming that it would generate $6 billion in economic output due to tourism. That would far outweigh the lost productivity.
I think that number has been seriously inflated too. I was in the path of totality here in Terre Haute, IN. Traffic was normal the whole time before and after the eclipse. I didn’t go right downtown, but we went to a park with an advertised event going on and where people from other parts of the country were coming, but it wasn’t really any more full than if they had done it during the summer.
Nearby Bloomington, IN was expecting 500,000 people. They had a special event with Mae Jemson, William Shatner and Janelle Monae. They have IU Memorial Stadium there, which is designed to handle major Big 10 football games. In the photo I saw, it was maybe a quarter full and that’s being generous.
The eclipse was on a Monday and most kids didn’t have the day off from school unless they were at least close to the path of totality. The tourism boom did not appear.
That’s sad to read. The total eclipse of my lifetime was in 1999 and my place was bang in the middle of the corridor of the umbral shadow. It was truly a spectacular event. Schools and most work places were closed for that day and my godfather just told his boss “I’m not coming in, fire me, I don’t care” lol (he didn’t get fired)
Not to defend bosses here, because I would absolutely let people off for the eclipse, but I can see why a boss in, say, Iowa would not be cool with all of their employees taking a day trip to the other side of Illinois to see the path of totality. A lot of them just wouldn’t get it. And if you can’t take your kid out of school anyway, it doesn’t really matter.
Yeah and the town I went to literally had cars parked along every single street. I can only speak for myself, but I didn’t spend a single dime there. We brought a lunch and snacks and I was thinking of getting dinner while out but seeing how busy it was, I decided instead to gtfo of town before everyone else decided it was time to get on the road, basically a minute or two after totality ended. It was a “see something cool in nature” thing rather than a “go spend money” thing for me. I wouldn’t be surprised if it costed the region more money in police overtime than it brought in in tourist dollars. Though regions on the way there might have seen higher speeding ticket revenue, at least until the line of cars saturated to the point where no one was speeding (and turning left if you were going the other way would be difficult).