This report describes the economic impacts of travel to and through Arizona and the state’s fifteen counties. The estimates of the direct impacts associated with traveler spending in Arizona were produced using the Regional Travel Impact Model developed by Dean Runyan Associates. The estimates for Arizona are comparable to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Satellite Accounts produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The estimates of spending, earnings, employment and tax receipts are also used as input data to derive estimates of other economic measures, including gross domestic product and secondary effects of the travel industry.

This survey of visitors to Arizona’s wine tourism regions was undertaken to gather market research on a growing industry, including visitor demographics, travel patterns, satisfaction with the experience and spending patterns. This information will assist the wineries, vineyards, tasting rooms and local tourism communities in the wine regions with targeted marketing efforts, product development, and advocacy for a burgeoning industry that is critical to the health of these rural regional economies.

A survey of visitors to Native American tribal lands in Arizona was commissioned by the Arizona Office of Tourism and conducted by NAU’s Arizona Hospitality Research & Resource Center in 2004-2005. This research constituted the first major study of visitors to Native American tribes in Arizona and possibly in the Southwest. This final report, Survey of Visitors to Arizona Tribal Lands, provides first-ever baseline visitor data, presented in aggregate for the eight participating Arizona tribes. The study found that visitors to these Native American tribes in Arizona are slightly older, have higher annual incomes, stay longer, and have higher daily expenditures (for lodging, shopping and entertainment) than Arizona visitors generally. Visitors to Arizona’s tribes are also more interested in cultural and historic activities, shopping for arts and crafts, educational experiences and sightseeing than are visitors overall. They are also highly satisfied with their visits to Native American tribal lands.

This report is a reexamination of visitor data first reported in the multi-year "Survey of Visitors to Arizona’s Tribal Lands," which was commissioned by the Arizona Office of Tourism and conducted in 2004-05 by the Arizona Hospitality Research and Resource Center at Northern Arizona University. That study, released in December 2005, analyzed visitor data collected for eight Arizona American Indian tribes and presented that data in aggregate for all tribes. This report, on the other hand, disaggregates that original database to take a more in-depth look at visitor patterns at Rural versus Metro tribes in Arizona.

Generally, this second study found that visitors to Rural and Metro tribes in Arizona are similar in many ways – parties of two persons; parties composed largely of family members; similar educational and income levels; private vehicles as travel mode; similar sightseeing and cultural/heritage activities; similar information sources; relatively high satisfaction levels; and, many similar shopping purchases. The survey also found some significant differences, however, including the following: Travel parties visiting Rural tribes contained more children, more Arizona residents, and had higher numbers of repeat visitors. Visitors to Rural tribes were also more likely to describe the tribe as their main destination; were more likely to engage in recreation and outdoor activities; stayed longer; and, consequently had higher spending. Visitors to Metro tribes were slightly older and visited the tribe as one stop on a longer trip. Visitors also reported slightly higher satisfaction levels at Metro tribes.

The best way to evaluate job quality would be to analyze a dataset that presents both occupational and industrial data, but the only dataset of this nature available by state comes from the decennial census. It is severely limited by small sample size, the latest data are for 1999, and the 1999 data are not consistent with the 1989 data. Thus, the initial work by the Seidman Institute on job quality ("Job Quality in Arizona," March 2005) presented data on Arizona job quality from several sources of either industrial or occupational data. "Job Quality in Arizona Compared to All States" (June 2005), is an extension of the March 2005 report. Arizona’s job quality in the latest year and its change over time is compared to the national
average and is ranked among the 51 “states” (including the District of Columbia).

Available data on the cost of living indicate that living costs in Arizona are close to the national average — thus, the state’s lower-than-average wages are not offset by low living costs. No productivity data exist for Arizona. Worker productivity in Arizona could be below the national average due to lesser investments in physical or human capital, which would result in lower wages. Labor market supply and demand factors are a likely cause of the low wages in Arizona. A substantial number of people seem willing to move to Arizona and accept a substandard wage in exchange for perceived qualitative advantages to living in Arizona, primarily climate.

The long-term trend toward lower-quality jobs in the United States continued between 2001 and 2004. Industrial job quality fell 1.6 percent nationally between 2001 and 2004. The decrease in occupational job quality was not quite as great at 0.9 percent. Thus, overall U.S. job quality dropped 2.5 percent during the three years, causing the U.S. average wage to be 2.5 percent less than it otherwise would have been. Arizona’s job quality fell between 2001 and 2004 at a pace worse than the national average. Relative to the national average, the industrial and occupational job mixes each slipped a bit more than 0.3 percent during the three years, for an overall decline of 0.7 percent. In Arizona, job quality in 2004 was 2.0 percent below the national average, but Arizona ranked 23rd among all states.

The quality of jobs in the United States became a national concern in the 1980s after a long period of losses of relatively high-paying manufacturing jobs and gains of frequently low-paying service jobs. National job quality remains a concern today, as witnessed by the debate in the 2004 presidential campaign. The overall average wage is a measure of prosperity or well-being, but is not in itself a measure of job quality since job quality is just one of several factors — including cost of living, productivity, and desirability of an area — that affect the overall average wage. Little information on these factors is available by state. Adjusting for job quality reduces the state-by-state variation in wages. However, even after adjusting for job quality, the average wage still varies substantially by state.