Annually, the Department of Travel conducts a study of the expenditure, employment and tax impacts generated by Kentucky's tourism and travel industry.

Logan County's expenditures in tourism grew in 2003 to $7.1 million, up 4.3 percent from $6.57 million the year before. That total was 72nd largest among Kentucky's 120 counties.

Todd County's total went from $955,405 to $969,198, which was 110th.

Muhlenberg placed 49th at $22.8 million, up from $21.3 million. Butler County passed the $2 million mark at $2.5 million, a significant increase over 2002's $1.97 million, but still over 96th overall.

Simpson County stayed basically the same at $2.3 million, which was 53rd.

Christian County placed 24th, up from $47.7 to $48.9 million.

Bowling Green/Warren County ranked 5th at $166.8 million, up from $159 million in 2002. Louisville/Jefferson County placed first at $1.28 billion, down slightly from $1.3 billion the year before.

Logan's tourism employment grew from 142 to 148 a year later. Warren County provided 3,703 tourism jobs (43 more than in 2002). Simpson's tourist-related jobs dropped from 473 to 461. Christian County fell from 919 to 907. Todd, on the other hand, has only 19 people working in tourism jobs.

The major findings of the 2003 study:

1) The tourism and travel industry contributed nearly $9.3 billion to Kentucky's economy in 2003.

2) While all regions of the state received expenditures from tourists and travelers, the Louisville-Lincoln and Bluegrass regions accounted for 50.8 percent of these expenditures in 2003.

3) In 2003, out-of-state visitors contributed $6.1 billion of the $9.3 billion total expenditure impact, or nearly two out of every three travel dollars spent within Kentucky.

4) The industry generated $144 million in tax revenues to local governments and $807.2 million to state government, for a total tax impact of $951.2 million in 2003.

5) Four of the nine tourism regions experienced real growth in 2003 as compared to 2002. The largest increase was 2.8 percent in the Bluegrass Region.

6) A total of 162,243 jobs resulted from this industry in 2003.

7) While all of Kentucky's counties experienced tourism-generated employment in 2003, these jobs continued to be concentrated in Jefferson and Fayette counties. These two counties alone accounted for 32.9 percent of the jobs.