VIDEO: The Evolving Impact of Tourism

For National Travel and Tourism Week, the team at Peninsula Filmworks examined an often-overlooked impact of tourism: how the revenue it brings has helped local municipalities spend millions to open shoreline for public access.

Towns, villages, the city of Sturgeon Bay and the County of Door have spent more than $26 million since 2007 to secure shoreline frontage and adjacent acreage for the public. That has created new parks, expanded beaches, added performing arts venues and refreshed playgrounds. Much of that would not have been possible without the more than $20 million that room tax brought to local municipalities during that time.

It’s part of the ongoing struggle to balance attracting visitors, with preserving the best of the peninsula for everyone.