Tourism plays major role in new Montana economy

Natural resources play lesser role these days, but service sector wages lag

The Montana economy has shifted from natural resource extraction to services, and the tourist industry plays a big part in that change, Norma Nickerson, director of the University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research concludes in a July 2007 report called "The changing structure of Montana’s economy, what is tourism’s place?"

For much of the state’s first 100 years, mining, forestry, livestock and agriculture were the mainstays. In 2001, economists Tom Power and Richard Barrett called that dated view of the Montana economy "cowboy economics," Nickerson notes.

By RICHARD HANNERS
Whitefish Pilot

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