Dark Sky Conservation and Tourism Impacts at Great Sand Dunes

At a glance

Type of work: Tourism economics and non-market valuation
Client type: Public land management context
Location: Great Sand Dunes National Park region
Lead economist: Guanyi Yang, PhD
Deliverables: Survey-based analysis, impact estimates, publishable research output
Methods: Travel cost modeling and contingent behavior modeling

The question we set out to answer

The Great Sand Dunes National Park is known for its dark skies and is designated a Gold Tier International Dark Sky Park. The question was practical:

If light pollution increases and night-sky quality declines, how would visitor behavior change, and what would that mean for local tourism spending?

What Focalize Solutions did

We analyzed a visitor survey of more than 360 park visitors and modeled how changes in sky quality would affect future visitation.

We combined two tools:

• Travel Cost Model: Uses what people spend to reach the park to infer the value they place on the experience.

• Contingent Behavior Model: Uses scenario-based questions to estimate how future visits change as conditions change.

This approach lets you translate an environmental quality change into a concrete outcome that decision-makers understand: visits, spending, and regional impact.

What the analysis found

This post summarizes a few headline results:

• Behavior change: 47% of surveyed visitors said they would reduce future visits if the night sky became significantly brighter.

• Local spending impact: Under a “much brighter sky” scenario, local tourism revenue could decline by up to $295,000 annually.

• Regional ripple effects: The implied regional GDP reduction could reach roughly $325,000 annually.

Why this mattered

Night-sky quality is not just aesthetic. It affects visitation decisions and local economic activity. For communities that depend on tourism, the value of conservation can be quantified in the same units used in funding discussions: dollars, visits, and regional impacts.

What we delivered and how it can be used

Work like this supports decisions such as:

• Whether to invest in dark-sky conservation programs

• How to prioritize mitigation actions and stakeholder coordination

• How to communicate the economic case for conservation to funders and partners

Work samples

We can share a redacted technical appendix and a sample summary exhibit upon request. The full research article is also available for circulation.

Related service: Economic valuation and impact analysis