Lake Placid overtook Lake George as the Adirondack region’s highest grossing tourism market last year, the most recent period for which statistics are available. In 2023, according to reports released by Governor Kathy Hochul’s office in August, Lake Placid experienced the Adirondack region’s highest growth year over year, an 11.2% increase in visitor spending, compared with 3.3% growth in Warren County.
Essex County generated $910 million in tourism sales, or 39% of all tourism sales in the Adirondacks. Lake George was responsible for 38% of those sales, generating $887.8 million in tourism spending in 2023, up from $859 million in tourism spending in 2022.
Lake George and Warren County’s other seasonal communities were responsible for the highest level of spending by second homeowners in the Adirondacks, generating $91.3 million in 2023, followed by the Lake Placid region, which generated $80.1 million in spending. Spending by second homeowners in the Adirondacks was worth $334.1 million in 2023, up from $314 million in 2022, the researchers from the
firm Tourism Economics found.
Historically, the Lake George region has been the engine driving the Adirondack tourism economy. In 2018, for instance, it was responsible for generating 42 percent of the region’s tourism revenue, the largest share of any county, according to Tourism Economics.
Essex County, with 33 percent, had the second largest share, followed by Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton and Lewis counties, in that order. Between 2019 and 2022, through the height (or depths) of the pandemic, tourism exploded in the Adirondacks.
Travelers’ spending between 2019 and 2022 grew by 141% after declining by 15% in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. In 2023, visitor spending in the Adirondacks grew to $2.3 billion, increasing by roughly 7% over 2022.
The decrease in the size of the Lake George region’s share of “the tourism pie” may be due to the declining popularity of events such as Americade, or perhaps to the state’s investment in Olympic facilities and winter sports competition in Lake Placid.
According to Tourism Economics, the Olympic Authority generated $77.2 million in visitor spending in Lake Placid in 2022-2023, a 2023 press release from the Olympic Regional Development Authority stated. The Olympic Authority’s spending at Warren County’s Gore Mountain generated $31.3 million in direct spending during that same period.
In some categories in 2023, the Lake George region continued to surpass Lake Placid’s numbers. Lake George produced the highest number of tourism-related jobs: 8,448 in 2023, up from 8,174 in 2022.
Tourism-generated income was also higher in Warren County than in any other Adirondack county: $363 million. And Warren County collected 40.4% of the region’s state and local taxes, followed by Essex County’s 36.3% share.
It is not yet clear what effect, if any, an investment in winter attractions in Lake George had on Warren County’s share of visitor spending in the Adirondacks in 2024, or what effect it might have in 2025.
During the first quarter of 2024, Essex County saw a 1.9% drop in sales tax revenues, while Warren County experienced a 6.5% increase. In January, 2024, the Lake George region’s hotel occupancy rate was up by more than 15% year over year. Essex County suffered a 33% decline in hotel occupancy that same month, largely because of the weather.
Fort William Henry president Sam Luciano attributed that increase in the rate of occupancy to two special events: Winter’s Dream and Winter Realms. “If we hadn’t had these, we could have experienced the
same downward slide that Essex County did,” Luciano told a committee of Warren County Supervisors in February, 2024.
Occupancy tax receipts were up nearly 2% on weekends during that same period, tourism officials said. “Lake George Area hotels outperformed their counterparts in average daily rate and revenue generated per room,” stated a March, 2024 press release from the organizers of Winter’s Dream, the interactive light show at Fort William Henry.
“Lake George Area hotels revenue per available rooms was up midweek 2023 and up weekends from Dec. 31 to Jan. 28. Other comparable destinations, such as Essex County, showed decreases.”
A version of this article first appeared on the Lake George Mirror, America’s oldest resort paper, covering Lake George and its surrounding environs. You can subscribe to the Mirror HERE.
Photos, from above: Lake Placid Village (courtesy Lake Placid Vacation Rentals); and Lake George Village (courtesy Fort William Henry Hotel).
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