The number of visitors at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore last year topped 1.5 million people for the ninth-straight year.
Year-end visitor tallies became public late last week.
Visitation in 2023 was 1,598,248, up 6.5% over the previous year total of 1,501,117, according to Scott Tucker, Lakeshore superintendent.
The announcement coincided with a recent CNN story which listed the Leelanau Peninsula No.4 among “24 places to go in 2024.”
“Wow! Northwest Michigan listed in between such places as Taiwan and the Balkans by CNN,” said Mark Morton, president of the Leland Chamber of Commerce. “We who live here know what a special place it is, but the word continues to spread.”
Indeed, Leelanau has long been a travel destination, however, this further intensified after 2011 when Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was named the “Most Beautiful Place in the Country” by Good Morning America.
Between 1976 and 2011, the average visitation was 1,061,541. Since then attendance has grown to average 1,576,574 per year.
For the last 10 years, the Park has had another feature which draws visitors in all seasons: the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail. Kerry Kelly, president of the Friends of Sleeping Bear explained how his organization keeps track of trail users.
“We have nine trail counters, so we have good information on trail use in each part of the trial as well as trail use by time of day and day of the week,” he said.
According to Kelly, 2023 saw a modest increase in trail use from about 70,000 trail users in 2022 to about 75,000 in 2023.
“We had about 150,000 trail counts, but we assume that most trail users go out and back, so they are counted at least twice each time they are on the trail,” Kelly said.
July was the busiest month of 2023 with 475,473 park visitors, nearly doubling June’s total of 247,112. Visitors counted in August were 396,855. However, this dropped to 174,744 in September and by half in October to 88,130.
In contrast, the fewest number of visitors were in December and January at just over 14,000. The biggest increase from month to month was between April and May.
In April, 29,872 visitors were counted. The following month, the number of visitor more than tripled to 100,248.
The number of jobs that federal officials say can be attributed to the presence of the National Lakeshore continues to rise with visitation along with spending in the community.
The 2,730 jobs estimated in a 2021 report added $82.4 million to local payrolls. The report cites $147 million in “value added” by the National Lakeshore to the gross domestic product of Leelanau, Benzie and Grand Traverse counties, which are all considered as “gateways” to Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Park visitors pump a lot of cash into the local economy. But some communities struggle to keep up with the influx of visitors.
“The Leland Chamber of Commerce wants to do the best it can for its members and promoting the area is a big part of that, but anyone who comes to Leland in the summer, and now in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, know there are limits to what the village can handle,” Morton said. “Issues such as parking, traffic, bathrooms, handicap access, and trash, continue to be on the Chamber’s agenda at just about every meeting of the board of directors. There are no easy answers, especially with traffic and parking given the geographic location of Leland between Lake Leelanau and Lake Michigan with the Leland River intersecting it.”
In addition to historic Fishtown, Leland harbor is home to Manitou Island Transit, which transports visitors to the Manitou Islands.
“One thing is for certain, along with the truly special place that is Leland and Fishtown, we will continue to make visitors feel welcome as best we can, even through they may have to hike a ways from their parking spot to experience it,” Morton said.
Since 2017, the average number of annual visitors is 1,633,249. The average number of annual visitors entering the park since 1976 is 1,215,625.
