The Office of Highway Safety produces the annual Highway Safety Plan to serve as the implementation guide for highway safety projects throughout Arizona. The Plan also is an application for funding through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Project selection is data driven and utilizes state and national traffic safety data (e.g., crashes, fatalities, injuries, citations, etc.). Knowledge of the Arizona political, economic, and demographic environments, as well as highway safety expertise on the part of staff and other partners also are taken into account where appropriate.

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.

The Arizona Department of Transportation has been involved with railroad planning since 1976, with its first State Rail Plan Update issued in 1978. The most recent report, the 2000 Arizona State Rail Plan Update was an important starting point for this Inventory and Assessment in that the seven-year-old study provides the description and inventory of Arizona railroads as they existed at that time. There have been a number of important changes over the intervening years, and these are reflected in this 2007 Inventory and Assessment. In addition to the 2000 State Rail Plan Update, RLBA made use of the 2003 Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) High-Capacity Transit Study and the 1998 Arizona High Speed Rail Feasibility Study. The information contained in this report was gathered from a number of sources, including the railroads themselves, ADOT, the Arizona Corporation Commission, MAG and numerous Arizona officials. A listing of persons who contributed to this Railroad Inventory and Assessment is provided under “Acknowledgements” inside the front cover. Information in this report also was obtained from the Association of American Railroads and from RLBA’s extensive data banks.

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.