Tourist visitation impacts of the accident at Three Mile Island

Conference · Fri Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:145397

Himmelberger, J J; Ogneva-Himmelberger, Y A ^[1]; Baughman, M L ^[2]

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1. Clark Univ., Worcester, MA (United States)
2. Intertech Services Corp., Las Vegas, NV (United States)

This paper analyzes tourist visitation impacts of the March 27, 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. A review of the literature, supplemented with recollections from Pennsylvanian public officials, are used to specify a conventional tourism impact model which holds that depressed 1979 summer tourism season was more influenced by gasoline shortages and possibly other confounding variables (such as rainy local weather conditions and a polio outbreak) than by the nuclear accident. Regression analysis using monthly visitation data for Hershey Chocolate World, Gettysburg National Park, The Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitor Bureau, and several state parks as dependent variables provide support for this model. Potential tourism implications of an accident at Yucca Mountain are briefly discussed in light of our findings.

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, La Grange Park, IL (United States); American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, NY (United States)
• OSTI ID: 145397
• Report Number(s): CONF-930408--Vol.2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
ECONOMIC IMPACT
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
RISK ASSESSMENT
SOCIAL IMPACT
THREE MILE ISLAND-1 REACTOR
TOURISM
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Yucca Mountain Project