Ark Encounter Will Boost Northern Kentucky Tourism Industry

A recent article notes that travel and tourism in NKY—an industry that currently supports over 12,000 jobs here—brought $2.7 billion into the economy last year. Apparently, the overall numbers for the state as a whole are the strongest seen in 10 years.

It’s great to see that tourism is booming in this beautiful state. There’s certainly a lot to see and do here. And it’s certainly going to only get better! The opening of the Ark Encounter in Williamstown (July 7) will attract 1.4–2.2 million visitors a year, most of them from out of our region and coming even from international destinations. This will be great for tourism!

Over the last almost nine years, we’ve seen over 2.6 million people come to tour the Creation Museum, and that number will steadily grow as many of the guests from the Ark will also visit the Creation Museum 40 miles away. The museum already adds $60 million to the regional economy every year and supports thousands of jobs in the area. We’ve actually heard from two large hotels that they would’ve had to close years ago if it wasn’t for the tourism impact of the world-class Creation Museum.

When you combine the Ark and the Creation Museum, the estimated economic impact (using the lowest figures) is $4 billion over 10 years! And over 20,000 jobs will be directly and indirectly created because of the increased tourism. Hundreds of these jobs will be at the Ark itself. (By the way, the Ark is now hiring!).

The Ark Encounter will be great for NKY and the tourism industry.

You can plan your visit to NKY to see the Ark Encounter (opening July 7) at ArkEncounter.com. In addition, think about visiting these nearby attractions: the Kentucky Horse Park in beautiful bluegrass country just south of the Ark; the Newport Aquarium; the Cincinnati Zoo; sporting events like the Cincinnati Reds and Cincinnati Bengals; King’s Island amusement park; and the Air Force Museum in Dayton (it’s free!).

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.