Although we are still awaiting the data from the 4th quarter of 2013, let us take a few moments to check out the 2012 tourism statistics: 

In 2012 Utah recorded 6.6 million national park visits, 5.1 million national monument, recreation area and historical site visits, 5.1 million state park visits, as well as 4.0 million skier days during the 2012/2013 season.  In 2012, the top international markets included visitors from Canada, France, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, and China.

If tourism were an export it would be the state’s second largest 
export behind primary metals ($12.2 billion) and well ahead of computers and electronics ($2.2 billion). 

Guest Blog by Alexandria May

My junior and senior years of high school I was lucky enough to go to the Teton Science School for a week with a group of my classmates. The Teton Science Camp is located in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, just a few hours drive away from Yellowstone. Every year one of our teachers, Mr. Angelo (a former park ranger at Yellowstone), selected a group of students to spend a week in February at science camp. Both years I went I had an amazing experience and will remember it for a long time. 

    During our time at camp, we lived in cabins, one for the boys and one for the girls. Each morning we woke up and went to the main cabin, and each of us was assigned a chore for the day. Some of these chores included setting up for meals, taking the weather, or measuring the amount of snowfall. We then went to the hall for breakfast, and then prepared our lunches to take with us out into the field. One aspect of meals at the camp was called the "ort bucket". The rule was, never take more food than you can eat, and any leftover food on your plate went into the bucket. The goal was to have 0 ort at the end of the week. One of our teachers even encouraged me to eat the apple cores! 

    After breakfast, we then had a lesson of the day. Some memorable lessons to me were learning about animal tracks and scat, differences between black bears and grizzly bears, how to read a snow pack, and about seratonous pine cones. Then came time to get ready to go out in the field with our assigned groups.

To get to our location we either cross-country skied or snowshoed. The land around the camp was a large meadow on one side, mountains in the back, and wetlands on the other side, so there were plenty of different ecosystems to study. We would have a lesson out in the field that pertained to the earlier one that morning, so we could see what they actually meant, and see first hand what was going on. After we came back from the field, we had a few hours break and then it was time for dinner, and then a nightly activity. 

    The day everyone looked forward to, however, was Yellowstone Day. My first year I went to the camp, I was so excited because I had never ever been to Yellowstone and was really looking forward to the experience. We piled into vans and began our journey to Yellowstone. After a few hours drive, we got out at the entrance to the park, and then had to get into giant Snow Cats to take us to out final destination. Outside of the Snow Cat at one point was a giant bison just a few feet away from us! I was in awe of how massive they were, and terrified at the same time. 

When we finally got out, we put on our cross-country skis and began a 4 hour trek to Old Faithful. Seeing all the wildlife around and being completely surrounded by nature was an incredible experience. It was a nice sunny day out and I remember vividly all my senses going wild. The end of our skiing journey was Old Faithful. I was so anxious to see it go off, I was counting down the seconds to its next eruption, and I was more than disappointed when it was 3 minutes late to erupt. However, when she finally did go off, it was the perfect end to an absolutely wonderful day. We were all so exhausted on the trip back to the camp, I'm not sure even one word was uttered. 

    Both of my times at camp were so much fun and a great learning opportunity. I learned so much about sustainability and being a responsible traveler out in nature. The "ort bucket' was a great teaching tool, and we also were taught to never ever leave anything out in nature, no wrappers, no food, no nothing. Also, if we had to go to the bathroom while we were out in the field, we brought along biodegradable toilet paper. The best lesson I learned however, was to leave the place as close as you can to how it was when we got there. Another valuable lesson was to follow all posted signs. If one of us was caught doing anything against a posted sign, there was hell to pay with the instructors.

    Teton Science Camp taught me a lot about how to act responsibly when on a vacation out in the wild. I take those lessons with me wherever I travel, and I have some fabulous memories to go along with them. 

Guest Blog by Eric Hull - an undergraduate student in Dr. Ralston's International Tourism course (Spring 2012)

How do you choose a destination over another?  I would choose the destination that had a higher quality operation! 

In the US, we have two great and different types of vacation destinations that are always on the top of the lists for places to visit, either during the summer or winter.  This is just my opinion, but those two destinations are the Disney Resorts or Deer Valley Resort.

Disney: The reason for their success over the years is that they care about their employees, they take the time to lay out their park by optimizing the use of their land, they train their employees to answer all questions that could be asked of them and finally they care about what you see when walking around the park. 

Deer Valley Resort: The reason for their success is that the same people have owned them since their beginning. Having the same ownership has allowed the resorts to have same policies in place over the years. Other resorts have changed ownership many times over the years. Deer Valley has tried to be like Disney in the way they treat their employees and guests by providing the highest quality of respect. One other nice thing that Deer Valley does is that they train their employees to know answers to any questions that may come their way 

I love these two resorts because they have similar qualities in how they train their employees, and how they care about the look of their resort. At either business you will always see an employee pick up trash no matter what condition that piece of trash is in. I also love these two destinations because of the time they put into training their employees to be respectful, well mannered and to know everything about their company they work for.

In my opinion, if I had to pick a place to travel to during the winter it would be Deer Valley Resort and in the summer it would be one the Disney Resorts.