Report: National Parks boost spending in New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A new report says the more than 2 million people who visited New Mexico’s national parks, monuments and wilderness preserves in 2017 spent $116 million in the state.

The National Park Service released the report Thursday.

In a statement, officials say a park service economist and U.S. Geological Survey economist conducted the analysis.

Nationwide, the park service says, 330 million people who visited towns within 60 miles of a park spent roughly $18.2 billion last year, helping to support hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Some of New Mexico’s best-known national park sites include Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico, Bandelier National Monument outside Los Alamos, and the White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo.

There are 15 total sites statewide.