Before 2018, nobody had ever put a hard number on what paddlers, cyclists, weekend festival-goers, and overnight travelers were actually worth to the communities that hug the Great Miami River. The 2017 Great Miami Riverway tourism economic impact report, prepared by Tourism Economics for the Great Miami Riverway organization, changed that. It gave Shelby, Miami, Montgomery, Warren, and Butler counties a shared, defensible baseline for a regional visitor economy that had, until then, been talked about anecdotally — kayaks on the water, ribbon-cuttings on new trailheads, a growing bike-and-brewery circuit through downtown Dayton, Troy, Piqua, and Hamilton.
The numbers were bigger than many expected.
Using an IMPLAN input-output model of Ohio's economy — the same modeling approach used in state-level tourism studies nationwide — Tourism Economics traced how visitor dollars moved through the five-county Riverway region:
| Metric | 2017 Result |
|---|---|
| Total business sales generated | $773.0 million |
| Total jobs supported | 9,110 |
| Total wages/labor income | $219.8 million |
| Total tax revenue generated | $99.6 million |
| Share of private-sector jobs sustained by tourism | 5.7% |
Of that $773 million, $510.9 million was direct visitor spending — money spent straight into local restaurants, hotels, outfitters, attractions, and retailers. The remaining $262.1 million came from indirect impacts (businesses buying goods and services from local suppliers) and induced impacts (employees spending their tourism-generated paychecks back into the local economy).
Montgomery County — anchored by Dayton — was the clear engine of the Riverway visitor economy in 2017, generating $521.7 million in tourism sales and 5,802 jobs, more than two-thirds of the entire region's total. Butler County followed with $111.7 million and 1,618 jobs, Miami County posted $99.6 million and 1,212 jobs, Warren County recorded $23.0 million and 222 jobs, and Shelby County contributed $17.1 million and 256 jobs.
By industry, food & beverage led the way with $142.2 million in direct sales and over 3,300 direct jobs, followed closely by recreation and entertainment ($77.1 million) and lodging ($76.7 million) — a reminder that river-based recreation (kayaking, paddleboarding, fishing, and the region's growing trail network) was already translating directly into overnight stays and restaurant tabs.
What made the 2017 report more than a one-off snapshot was its methodology. By anchoring the Riverway numbers to the same Longwoods International visitor survey data, STR lodging data, and Bureau of Economic Analysis employment figures used in the statewide Ohio tourism study, the Great Miami Riverway gained a repeatable, apples-to-apples framework. That decision paid off: it's the reason we can now track the region's tourism economy across three studies — 2017, 2021, and 2023 — and see a real growth story unfold, not just isolated snapshots.
It also gave local governments, chambers of commerce, and economic development offices along the river a concrete talking point. When tourism sustains 1 in every 17 jobs in a five-county region and generates nearly $100 million in tax revenue without raising a single household's tax bill, that's a powerful case for continued investment in trails, boat launches, riverfront parks, and wayfinding — the exact kind of infrastructure the Great Miami Riverway partnership has continued to build in the years since.
The Riverway's performance mirrored a strong year for tourism statewide. Ohio welcomed 219 million visitors in 2017 who spent $35.2 billion, generating 493,625 jobs and $6.7 billion in total tax revenue — with tourism supporting nearly 1 in 11 jobs statewide. The Riverway region's five counties captured a meaningful slice of that momentum, particularly given that Montgomery County alone punched well above its weight relative to comparably sized Ohio metros.
The 2017 baseline set expectations for future growth — expectations that would be tested by a global pandemic just two years later. When Tourism Economics returned to measure the Riverway's 2021 recovery year, and again for 2023, the 2017 figures became the benchmark for "full recovery" and, eventually, for genuine growth beyond pre-pandemic levels. Read on to see how the Great Miami Riverway's tourism economy weathered COVID-19 and what its post-pandemic trajectory looked like in our companion posts on the 2021 report and 2023 report.
How much tourism revenue did the Great Miami Riverway generate in 2017? Visitors generated $773 million in total business sales across the five-county Great Miami Riverway region in 2017, according to Tourism Economics.
How many jobs did tourism support along the Great Miami Riverway in 2017? Tourism supported 9,110 jobs — both directly and indirectly — representing 5.7% of private employment in the region.
Which counties make up the Great Miami Riverway? As of the 2017 study, the Great Miami Riverway region included Shelby, Miami, Montgomery, Warren, and Butler counties, covering approximately 99 miles of the Great Miami River corridor.
Who conducted the Great Miami Riverway economic impact study? Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company, conducted the analysis using an IMPLAN input-output economic model, the same methodology used for Ohio's statewide tourism impact studies.
Source: "The Economic Impact of Tourism in The Great Miami Riverway Region of Ohio," Oxford Economics, August 2018. Prepared for the Great Miami Riverway.