Kingston, NY—Ulster County Executive Mike Hein announced today the issuance of a report entitled “Belleayre Economic Impact Analysis”. This report, prepared by business faculty members at the State University (SUNY) of New York at New Paltz, measures the economic impact of the existing Belleayre Mountain Ski Facility and the findings are striking. Even using conservative assumptions, the analysis finds that the facility has an annual regional visitor impact of $12.5 million and that the economic activity produced by these sales yields a value added, including personal income, of $7 million.
The analysis was conducted by Professors Kevin Caskey and Daniel Shen of the SUNY New Paltz School of Business at the request of County Executive Mike Hein. “In Ulster County, we have long felt that Belleayre is a significant regional economic driver but we have lacked hard data to confirm it,” said Ulster County Executive Mike Hein. Now, through the professional work of the State University of New Paltz, we have estimates of the true impact of Belleayre. Restaurants, hotel and retail businesses owners in the Belleayre Region know the importance of Belleayre and the economic opportunity it brings to our community. Belleayre is a vital economic driver for Ulster County and the region.”
This collaboration between Ulster County government and SUNY New Paltz is consistent with the mission of the SUNY New Paltz Business Support Center to bring faculty, students, and regional business community and government together to work on variety of projects to assist businesses, according to Dr. Hadi Salavitabar, dean of the School of Business at SUNY New Paltz. School of Business Dean, Dr. Hadi Salavitabar said, “SUNY New Paltz has taken seriously Chancellor Zimpher’s call to assist in local economic development efforts by forming the Business Support Center. We have undertaken this important research to measure the impact of Belleayre in order to assist policy makers by providing concrete data. The SUNY New Paltz Business Support Center appreciates the opportunity to share our faculty talent and expertise in assisting the community.”
The analysis used the Money Generation Models originally developed by for the National Park Service by Michigan State University. These models are widely used to analyze the economic impact of ski facilities and parks throughout the nation. In order to confirm the results of the economic modeling, the work was supplemented with interviews of local businesses and final results were confirmed against comparison economic models. The result is a conservative assessment.
Read the final report by following the link below: http://ulstercountyny.gov/pressreleases/2012/Belleayre%20Report%203-19-12.pdf
