Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design

Department

Recreation, Parks and Tourism Resources

Committee Chair

Jinyang Deng.

Abstract

Tourism has proven to be a major contributor to West Virginia's economy after much of the states agricultural, mining, and chemical manufacturing have ceased. This study created a database of cultural tourism resources (battlefields, historic sites, festivals, and museums) and tourism businesses (camping sites, lodging, and restaurants) and created a location map of each resource type, determined their spatial distribution across the state, categorized counties based on cultural tourism resources, tourism businesses and travel spending, and examined the relationship of the tourism resources and travel spending at the county level. Two large portions of the state were found to rank lower than average for all four of the following topics: unweighted cultural tourism resources, weighted cultural tourism resources, tourism businesses, and travel spending. Many counties in the middle and southwest portions of the state were found to rank lower than the state average in amenity level for the four previously mentioned topics. Counties in these regions of low economics should determine how to use existing tourism resources to their advantage so that they may attract more visitors and capture travel revenue, improving the standard of living for their communities. In addition, cultural tourism resources were found to be significantly clustered, while tourism businesses and travel spending were not.

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