Exploring the impact of tourism in Whatcom County

Located in the upper northwest corner of the continental United States, Whatcom County is surrounded by the border with Canada, the Cascade Mountains and the Salish Sea and encompasses a vibrant culture and almost any type of outdoor recreation you can imagine. 

The tourism market has been interlinked with Canadian visitors in the past and has resumed welcoming them — and others — since the pandemic interrupted travel.

Take a look at one large annual event that takes place in Whatcom County: the Ski to Sea race, which starts at the Mount Baker Ski Area, proceeds down and along the lengthy and scenic Mount Baker Highway, the Nooksack River and Bellingham Bay and ends in Bellingham’s Fairhaven district. Teams of professional athletes mix with everyday family and friends who ski, bike, run and paddle. Thousands of visitors and locals compete, watch or party at the finish line.

Bellingham/Whatcom County Tourism is a nonprofit economic development and destination marketing agency that promotes Bellingham and Whatcom County as a premier year-round travel destination for leisure travel as well as business meetings and conferences, group tours, sports, outdoor recreation and cultural heritage.

Created and incorporated in 1978, BWCT continues to monitor and encourage visitors. From its physical office adjacent to the freeway near Lakeway Drive, it creates an impact by sending staff to conferences, leading workshops and responding to requests for information.

“Destination marketing organizations like ours rely on metric tools to understand and champion the economic impact of meetings and events,” said Katy Willis, BWCT director of destination sales. “Destinations International, in partnership with Tourism Economics, developed an Event Impact Calculator which is utilized by over 300 destination organizations worldwide and is the global standard for measuring net new money coming to a community because of meetings and events. Meetings and events are an important revenue stream for our community. They not only provide direct spending but also generate sales tax dollars and support jobs.”

Willis translated tourism into dollars and the impact on Whatcom County: The Event Impact Calculator from direct sales amounts to $1.27 million, and estimated hotel room night demand is 2,120. For Bellingham Bells baseball, 31 regular season home games account for an EIC in direct sales of $69,688 per game and an estimated hotel room night demand of 23 rooms each game for a total of $2.16 million and 713 room nights for the season. During the American Rhododendron Society conference, held May 1 to 5 in 2024, the EIC in direct sales was $101,300 and 274 total hotel room nights.

BWCT hosts an education series on recreation and tourism. On Oct. 30, 2024, Sales and Sports Development Manager Eric Rainaud-Hinds and Community Outreach and Destination Development Manager Lindsey Gerhard hosted a session in the Hotel Leo Crystal Ballroom on the impact of tourism from sports, outdoor recreation, cultural arts, events and festivals on the community and discussed how to be involved. BWCT outreach also has included a road trip series in which BWCT partnered with Scenic Washington to produce videos about traveling scenic roadways locally, including Chuckanut Drive and soon another on Mount Baker Highway.

The 2024 report will be released in May; the last completed year was 2023.

According to State of Washington Tourism, total travel spending in 2023 was $750.8 million, up 9.1 percent from 2022.

In addition to the central tourism office, the smaller towns in the county also operate tourism efforts. The city of Blaine has a Blaine Tourism Advisory Committee to more effectively develop its tourism and recreation economy and updates the Blaine Tourism Marketing & Development Plan. It also recommends programs to the local city council and seeks ways to interface with the public and business community.

On the waterfront

Christine Jenkins has been the director of sales and marketing at the four-star full-service luxury Hotel Bellwether on the waterfront since the spring of 2021. She oversees all marketing efforts, sales, public relations and strategic use of the 10,000-square-foot event space. Prior to this role, Jenkins had 20 years’ experience in the tourism and hospitality industry, including as an employee of BWCT and in a similar position at the Four Points Sheraton. Jenkins has continued to serve on several associated boards, including the Bellingham Tourism Commission and the Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism Board. She is a past member of the Lodging Tax Advisory Board.

In the hospitality industry, Jenkins has seen changes in recent years. Bellwether saw growth during the pandemic, with visitors not venturing as far from home to enjoy shopping, meetings, concerts and museums. Rather than Canadians making their way down, rooms were filled with those seeking in-state leisure opportunities or business travel, she said. In 2024, Jenkins saw more Canadian travel for leisure, shopping and events. Her hotel has large bayside event spaces, and Jenkins said she has seen the guest lists for weddings increase from around 100 to 150 initially to 200 to 300 now. 

When Canadians couldn’t visit during the border closure, more locals started to come, Jenkins said, and often the purpose was simply for resting or disconnecting. They needed a place and space to de-stress and recuperate.

BWCT Communications Manager Becky Mandelbaum relays information from BWCT President and CEO Dylan Deane-Boyle for insight on tourism impacts. 

“When restrictions lifted in 2021,” said Mandelbaum, “we saw a surge in tourism across the country and internationally, with visitor spending in Whatcom County increasing by 38.4 percent compared to 2020. This upward momentum continued into 2022, with spending increasing 30.5 percent in Whatcom County. Though the rate of growth slowed in 2023, which was to be expected after the boom of ‘revenge travel’ following COVID shut-downs, tourism spending in 2023 still grew 9.1 percent, and visits increased 4.6 percent, coming closer to pre-COVID numbers, suggesting that travel to Whatcom County is stabilizing.”

The $750.8 million injected by visitor spending into the Whatcom County economy in 2023 supported 7,735 local jobs and reduced the individual tax burden by more than $700, Mandelbaum said. During that time, Whatcom County had 3.42 million total visits, a growth of 4.6 percent. A portion of lodging tax collected in the county gets reinvested into the community in the form of tourism promotion grants. These grants, which are administered by local municipalities, help fund local events and infrastructure, such as the July NW Tune Up Festival and public restroom maintenance in highly visited areas such as Glacier and Birch Bay.

Most of the visitors driving from outside the region come from Seattle; Vancouver, British Columbia; and places in Oregon. Meanwhile, visitors have been flying from cities in California and places in the Southwest with direct flights into Bellingham International Airport.

“Canadian spending in Whatcom County typically fluctuates with the exchange rate,” Mandelbaum said. “Another change over the years is that increasingly, visitors on the ground and potential visitors find our information online, making our website, digital content and social media presence more essential than ever.”

Western Washington University’s Laurie Trautman, a professor and director of the Border Policy Research Institute at WWU, said her department is doing fewer analyses of the impacts of cross-border traffic than before the pandemic.

While the traffic volume is rising, it is still not up to pre-pandemic status. One factor is the Nexus program, which does background checks of its participants for faster cross-border travel. While this program has two appointments — one for each country — at the same time in the US, it often is more extensive on the Canada side, which makes enrollment more difficult.

Trautman also noted that due to the length of the pandemic, shoppers had time to create and sustain new shopping behaviors. At the same time, the local community, she said, did see an increase in local spending. Like others, Trautman also looked to the strength of the Canadian dollar for the most impact on shopping south of the border. The Canadian dollar in November 2024 was close to 70 percent of the US dollar, close to its lowest point since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. The results of the US presidential election, Trautman said, also are likely to have impacts, especially if tariffs or economic measures are instituted with Canada.

A small border town: Lynden 

Scenic Lynden, with population 16,551, is known for its Dutch charm. Unlike Sumas and Blaine, Lynden doesn’t sit exactly on the international border but is in close proximity. Gary Vis, longtime director of the Lynden Chamber of Commerce, recently celebrated a popular festival in his town: the lighted Christmas parade on the first Saturday night in December along the town’s Front Street. It attracts locals and visitors alike as trucks and floats ringed with lights entertain the crowds. (Sumas and Blaine were also contacted but did not respond.)

“Pre- and post-pandemic are in many ways the same,” Vis said. “For example, for our Canadian visitors, most appear to be day-trippers coming down for a bite to eat, some shopping and visiting their favorite stops, such as the Lynden Dutch Bakery or Lynden Heritage Museum (formerly known as the Lynden Pioneer Museum). We seem to have more visitors coming overnight to visit family in the area or making a trip up to British Columbia and making us a stop for a night or two on the way up or back.

“Visitors from around the country, especially the East Coast, seem to be straight up making a trip to see the West Coast. Lynden is the base camp to see the county and great Northwest.”

Lynden has made a concerted attempt to get locals more involved in community life, Vis said.

“We have taken the approach in our marketing to focus on who we are as a community,” he said. “On social media, we spend the majority — roughly 70 percent or so — of the space ‘speaking’ to locals, primarily because as a consultant hired by Bellingham Tourism stated a few years ago, we need the locals to ‘make the experience,’ so coming to community events, participating in local activities, etc., in order to build the excitement and energy visitors enjoy. Then, when visitors do make the plunge to visit, they have a spectacular experience and often make return trips to enjoy more.”

Vis said visitors may come to the Northwest Raspberry Festival in the early summer and then make a return trip for the Northwest Washington Fair in August.

“We often remind our local residents they are a huge part of the visitor experience,” Vis said. “A ‘hello,’ smile and a wave, and just being friendly, are so important, as we all enjoy when we ourselves visit somewhere, as many visitors comment about their positive interactions with the folks who call north Whatcom County home.”

Since pandemic restrictions were lifted, Vis said he has seen many more Canadians coming again for day trips or overnight stays. Lynden also is getting steady visits from within the state and even from the Midwest via recreational vehicle travel, as people tour the country and stay at the Lynden KOA and Oostema Farmstead, which has space in a farm setting for RVs (“Each a unique experience in their own way,” Vis said).

“Based on comments we receive,” he said, “the area in general has such natural beauty that they are stunned: ‘it is better than the photos and websites show.’”

Overall, tourism is a boon for Lynden.

“Tourism does help the local economy to some extent, perhaps more than some appreciate,” Vis said, “and although the hard numbers are hard to determine, if at the end of the year $350,000 or so of Lynden sales tax — about 10 percent of the city’s total sales tax revenue — are generated by visitors, and more people have businesses and jobs because of our visitors, it’s a win for Lynden.”