Visit Bend and consulting firm Echo Northwest presented a data-driven review of tourism patterns in Bend during the Stewardship Subcommittee meeting, saying visitor spending supports amenities and jobs even as most regular use of parks and trails comes from residents.

The presentation, led by Jeff Knapp, chief executive officer of Visit Bend, and Mark Buckley, a partner at Echo Northwest, focused on visitation trends, the relationship between visitors and new residents, and strategies to manage congestion and resource impacts.

Knapp said Visit Bend has shifted its organization from “strictly [a] destination marketing organization to destination stewardship,” a change he described as putting “dollars back into the community… and showing up with human capacity and data.” He said the organization invested in the study to check its work and inform more sustainable outreach and grant programming.

Buckley, who described the analysis as an “honest assessment” using census data, park counts and cell-phone location data, explained economic measures used in the study. “This is net benefit. This is the value that you receive from something above and beyond what you pay for,” Buckley said when describing consumer surplus and how the study values recreation benefits.

Key findings, as presented to the subcommittee:
- Visitor spending supports local jobs and businesses: presenters said visitor spending in 2023 translated to roughly 629 full-time-equivalent jobs in Deschutes County and about 230 FTEs attributable to Whitewater Park alone. The presentation distinguished labor income from total economic output, noting the latter is larger because it includes downstream industry effects.
- Residents account for most routine use of amenities: Buckley showed layered analyses (annual, monthly, daily) indicating that, except for specific peak events or weekends, residents make up the majority of visits to places such as Mount Bachelor, downtown and Whitewater Park. Presenters said peaks (for example, Memorial Day weekend) are when visitors can be a larger share and when congestion is most evident.
- Visitation volumes and origin overlap with new residents: the consultants said cell-phone data shows alignment between where visitors come from and where new residents originate; presenters noted Deschutes County recorded tens of thousands of new households in recent years while visitor volume has declined by about 6% over a recent three-year span (as reported by the presenters).
- Second homes and seasonal homes matter: presenters said Bend’s share of second homes is materially higher than national averages and noted that vacation rentals represent less than 2% of housing units, while second-home ownership is comparatively large.

On management and next steps, Visit Bend said it will shift some marketing and recruitment toward group business (conferences and organized travel) that is less weather- and smoke-sensitive than leisure travel, and will use targeted messaging and transportation coordination during peak events. Knapp said Visit Bend had largely refrained from promoting summer visitation in recent years and is now reassessing that approach to align with community capacity and air-quality risks.

Council members asked for data currency and sources; presenters acknowledged some datasets currently cited in the report predate the most recent population estimates and said they will check with data partners for the latest updates. Buckley said the more granular mobile-location and park-count datasets used in the study allow planning that is more targeted than older five-year monitoring methods.

Visit Bend and Echo Northwest recommended a mix of strategies: strengthen data collection and sharing with the city, pursue targeted messaging and group-recruitment strategies, harden or concentrate use in high‑demand natural‑resource sites, and consider carrying‑capacity thresholds (presenters noted a commonly observed threshold of around 70–75% lodging occupancy when negative sentiment increases).

The subcommittee did not take formal action on the presentation. Presenters said they are available to follow up with staff and the full council as the city’s economic development planning and climate efforts proceed.