The below case study was developed through a NGA partnership with Oregon State University’s Center for the Outdoor Recreation Economy to research and assess the Travel, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation award program at the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Read the full report here.
Project Overview
Grant: Tourism Workforce Development and Training – “Tourism Works”
Grant recipient: West Virginia Department of Tourism, in collaboration with the West Virginia Department of Economic Development; Department of Education; and Council for Community & Technical College Education.
Type of grant: Statewide Tourism Grant
EDA funding: $5,148,017
Current Project Status: Some elements have been completed, but some are still in progress such as some of the online coursework/tourism workforce initiatives.
What is unique, innovative: West Virginia devoted its entire statewide tourism grant toward a tourism workforce development campaign, “Tourism Works.” The overall program represents a robust diversity in strategies that have integrated tourism, outdoor recreation, workforce development, economic development, and educational opportunities. These investments and activities have been initiated to diversify the state’s economy and amplify the travel, tourism, and outdoor recreation contributions to a resilient overall economy. The state’s program has included, in short, these elements and activities:
- Subawards to colleges and universities to enhance and develop new tourism-related degree and certificate programs.
- Creation of online workforce development resources.
- Workforce recruitment as early as middle and high school levels.
- Related workforce development investments with subgrants awarded to:
- West Virginia Department of Education: For revamping the tourism curriculum; coordinating with the Community & Technical College System and the state’s K-12 system; funds to schools to support field trips and student-led tourism-related projects; and guidance counselor outreach and training.
- West Virginia Department of Economic Development: To provide customized funding for professional development for tourism and outdoor recreation businesses, and for providing metrics on this data.
Takeaways on What’s Replicable: Benefits and some anticipated outcomes of the Tourism Works program are:
- Through a revamped K-12 curricula that now includes tourism, school-age children in the state are being educated about exciting new opportunities in the tourism industry.
- Students can earn college credits for tourism training they receive while in high school, contributing to the development of a tourism talent pipeline for the state.
- State-sponsored tourism-based student projects in high schools have been documented as being “life-changing” for some of the students.
- The combination of a long-standing state workforce program (the “Governor’s Guaranteed Workforce program”) with the newer Tourism Works program is benefitting both employees and employers in the tourism sector. The Train Your Team program, which is supported by the EDA grant, provides funding for customized training based on requests from tourism businesses. The employers are encouraged to request training that will allow them to expand the capacity of their businesses and serve more visitors.
- There is a clear community development aspect of the Tourism Works program as residents can learn about tourism and hospitality career opportunities and benefits through an online course while receiving a free 1-hour college credit.
Background on the Project
Under West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, tourism has been one of the Governor’s top priorities, and tourism has experienced a huge turnaround during his tenure. The Governor came into office 6 years ago in 2017. Since then, the Governor elevated the state’s Tourism Office to a cabinet level position as the Department of Tourism. He also tripled the state’s tourism budget, and invested more than $250 million into West Virginia State Parks.
Thanks to Governor Justice’s leadership, West Virginia began experiencing explosive growth in tourism around 2019. Total visitor spending reached $6.3 billion in 2023, according to the 2023 tourism economic impact report, which is 23% higher than in 2019 compared to 9% growth nationally.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account data, which is provided at the state-level, reported a 22% reduction in outdoor recreation related value added and 26.6% in outdoor recreation related employment between 2019 and 2020. By 2022, outdoor recreation related value added surpassed its 2019 level in the state, while employment effects are still being felt. This is a reason that WV’s strategy will help strengthen the resilience of the state’s economy.
As a result of all this, there has been an incredible amount of excitement generated around tourism from top to bottom. At the county and city levels of government, and even at the national level now, people are excited about tourism in West Virginia. For example, the Summerville Convention and Visitors Bureau holds a student contest each year to recognize students who submit tourism-related artworks, essays, and advertisements about the benefits of working in the industry. Local tourism businesses have also worked directly with students to help provide hands- on experiences building out the state’s tourism infrastructure. The Departments of Education and Tourism began accepting applications from schools for Tourism-based Economic Projects Impacting Communities (EPIC) grants that award funding for students to create tourism infrastructure projects on public lands in their regions.
The Case/Challenge: A consequence of the state’s rapid tourism growth was the strain it placed on the existing workforce, and the pandemic only made it much worse. The state needed to enhance workforce development in this area if it was to retain the significant growth and diversity realized in these sectors. When the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Travel, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation (TTOR) opportunity was announced in 2021, other states across the country examined the types of TTOR strategies they could pursue – and this included everything from infrastructure construction to emergency advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic.
West Virginia, on the other hand, went in a different direction. Concerned about the workforce challenges on the horizon, the state conducted a Tourism & Hospitality Workforce Survey in early 2022 using the EDA TTOR funding. A total of 438 surveys were started, and some 290 respondents met the eligibility criteria and went on to complete the entire questionnaire in the April-May time frame that year. The survey found, among many other findings:
- Nearly all businesses surveyed expected to see growth in employment over the next 5 years.
- Nearly 40% indicated they did not have money allocated in their budgets for employee training, and that they faced significant issues related to hiring.
- Challenges ranged from finding enough available workers within regions and being able to provide competitive wages to finding candidates with the specific skill sets required.
To address the identified workforce issues, West Virginia designed “Tourism Works” — a statewide tourism grant program with all of its $5.1 million EDA award dedicated to it. The goal is for everyone a visitor encounters in West Virginia to be an ambassador for tourism. In presenting the Tourism Works program in 2023, Gov. Justice said, “We’ve got tourism jumpstarted like you can’t even imagine. We might go from 21,000 to 210,000 job openings in the blink of an eye” (Figure 17). The Governor’s announcement was made at the Nicholas County Career and Technical Center.
Project Actors – State leaders, champions, stakeholders
The Tourism Works program is comprised of three initiatives, creating a comprehensive approach with three distinct areas of focus: 1) Shape our Future; 2) Train Your Team; and 3) Educate our Communities.
Shape our Future: As a first step, the Department of Tourism’s Tourism Works program focused on Tourism Talent Pipeline Development for the state by getting K-12 school-age children interested in tourism early-on by inserting it into school curricula based on collaborating with the state’s Department of Education. When Tourism Works began, kids were saying they wanted to be an astronaut, for example, but they weren’t saying that they wanted to work in tourism which was perceived as having low-paying jobs.
However, new findings have shown that West Virginia projects 21,000 annual tourism openings through 2030. Each year, 10,000 of these openings are projected to be for management-level positions, with salaries approaching $60,000, according to data from West Virginia’s Higher Education Policy Commission. The median household income in West Virginia in 2024 is $54,329, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Through the revamped K-12 curricula that includes tourism, kids are now being educated about new opportunities in the tourism industry. All 55 of the state’s counties were engaged in the process of updating the tourism and hospitality curriculum to make it more relevant to today’s tourism opportunities. For example, a new specialization in tourism marketing will be available to schools who signed on for this new part of the tourism curriculum.
Tourism Works is also creating new Tourism Pathways programs to make the connection between high school and college. High school students can now start earning college credits for the tourism training they receive during high school which further contributes to developing a tourism talent pipeline as part of the Discover Your Future program.
As an example of a partnership between the West Virginia Department of Tourism and career and technical centers, a group of students designed and constructed one-of-a-kind “Almost Heaven” swings in their welding, woodworking, and marketing classes and installed them on iconic scenic grounds around the state. This hands-on project experience has been life-changing for some of the students. One said he can’t wait to bring his kids and grandkids to see the swings in the future.
At the college level, Tourism Works is sub-granting to regional educational programs around the state for specialized tourism programs. The online training provided at the college-level has been modeled after a successful Proctor & Gamble (P&G) program when the company opened a new location in West Virginia 4 to 5 years ago. P&G successfully teamed up with post-secondary educational institutions to create a custom curriculum for specifically needed workers in certain areas of the state.
(Source: West Virginia Department of Tourism)
Train Your Team: The pre-existing Governor’s Guaranteed Workforce program offers eligible companies training grants of up to $2,000 per employee – up to a certain amount per year – for employers to provide training to upskill their employees. The Department of Economic Development assists with employee recruitment and other services. It is now being combined with the Tourism Works program which is bringing in targeted training to help address the training needs of TTOR industries from whitewater rafting businesses to hotels in the hospitality sector, and everything in between. This combination of programs benefits both employees and employers, as the state pays for specialized training that helps employees gain new skills and helps employers expand their businesses. The model is based on the training originally developed for a Toyota manufacturing plant in the town of Buffalo, West Virginia, where Toyota has now become the largest employer in Putnam County where Buffalo is located.
Educate our Communities: In terms of community development, there is a need to educate those in communities around the state to have a hospitality mindset. This will allow them to be able to talk to vendors and give directions to visitors. For this, Tourism Works teamed up with a West Virginia Community & Technical College System member institution to develop a widely accessible online course with education modules that are user friendly and relevant for today’s tourism industry. This resource is being planned for the Fall of 2024 and designed for everyone from ski instructors and raft guides to service station clerks and tourism entrepreneurs. Learners can take the program on their own time and receive a free 1-hour college credit.
Economic Benefits
West Virginia’s Tourism Works investment will serve as a model for other states interested in initiating an innovative statewide program to diversify their workforce and economic base. In addition to the focus on workforce development, West Virginia provides examples for marketing, outreach, and networking, as well as advancements in equity goals. These are all important actions exemplified by the focus of other TTOR-funded projects around the country.
West Virginia is currently in the design and implementation phases of its project and has empirical data demonstrating early indicators of success. West Virginia Tourism has a process in place that enables the collection of data when people are signing up and registering for the online course, enrolling in the programs of study either at the high school or college level, or enrolling in the Governor’s Guaranteed Workforce program at the professional development level. Having that data up front, the state can circle back with those participants to gather outcome data at the end, after the training has been completed, as well as measure the overall impacts of the workforce development programs.
Other Benefits
The innovative initiatives that make up the comprehensive West Virginia TTOR program called Tourism Works show why both residents and tourists are now so excited about tourism in the state. Taken as a whole, all of the Tourism Works initiatives will contribute to creating a hospitable state. A strong and well-educated workforce is a major step in attracting more visitors – who visit more often, stay longer on each visit, and spend more money while in the state. The program is exemplary in its diversification of the workforce, the economy, and the visitor base, ultimately making the economy more resilient to shocks.
In terms of outreach to disadvantaged populations, almost all of West Virginia’s 55 counties are in the Appalachian Regional Commission’s map of distressed counties. Therefore, most of the work being done through these initiatives will automatically be serving disadvantaged populations — at least in terms of the economic mobility factor. As the initiatives progress, the state plans to monitor the data on an ongoing basis to make sure it is receiving applications for the training programs from all of its counties, and that none are being left out. The state is casting a wide net to target not only distressed communities, but also minority populations using a combination of different approaches such as online platforms, social media, and other sources of jobs and career opportunities — including attending community center events in person to reach certain audiences and offer training.
Key Findings and Lessons Learned
There are certain stereotypes about tourism jobs and working in the tourism industry. West Virginia’s Tourism Works tried to address that by doing outreach to school guidance counselors (beyond just teachers). In the process of implementing the Tourism Works program, West Virginia Tourism has learned more about how the educational system is set up: That is, the guidance counselors and school administrators are often the ones making the decisions about implementing programs and steering students into newly created pathway programs. School guidance counselors comprise an audience that West Virginia Tourism didn’t realize it needed to focus on until starting this work. Several meetings about the EDA-funded TTOR project have involved guidance counselors at the table, and the Tourism Works program would like to reach more guidance counselors from across the state. For this purpose, the Department of Tourism has participated in annual meetings attended by these counselors and administrators to spread the word about tourism careers directly with this stakeholder group.
West Virginia Tourism is “building the airplane as it takes off,” in that the Tourism Works program is continuing to be built as it takes off.
Outdoor recreation is one of the main drivers of West Virginia’s tourism industry. The state’s Department of Tourism often highlights outdoor recreation to attract visitors to the state. The Department constructed the new workforce program to be broad enough so that hotels, restaurants, and other parts of the tourism and hospitality industry can access the program. Outdoor recreation providers are turning out to be one of the key “partner groups” accessing the new West Virginia Tourism Works program. For example:
- The Train Your Team initiatives are attracting interest from outdoor recreation providers, such as whitewater rafting and ski industry businesses, who are accessing the customized opportunities available through the initiative for their staff.
- One of the focus areas for the new high school tourism curriculum is called “Outdoor Recreation and Adventure Tourism” and that part of the revamped tourism curricula is already being well-received by the students at both the middle and high school levels.
- Certain of the pathway initiatives being developed into new certificate and degree programs at the state’s higher education institutions are outdoor recreation focused, although change at this level takes a longer amount of time to implement.
Time Factors, Any other Guidance Necessary for Replication
In terms of funding support, a sub-goal of the Tourism Department is for all the initiatives to continue after the EDA funding has run out through a proof-of-concept model for each of the initiatives being implemented. As the initiatives get off the ground and the state is able to collect metrics that show how the investments are paying off, it is hoped that either the state or other funding sources will enable their continuation based on seeing the value of investing in building out the tourism workforce. For example, under the grant’s timeline, the state of West Virginia only has a certain amount of funding and time to make the online tourism and hospitality program free for learners. However, there is hope to continue it under another funding source before the current funding expires.
Read the full report on Innovative Travel, Tourism, and Outdoor Recreation Awards, or additional case studies from: Colorado, Hawai‘i, Indiana, Maine and North Dakota.
Disclaimer: This document was prepared by the National Governors Association using Federal funds under award ED22HDQ3070131 from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Administration or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
