If you’ve walked through Bentleyville’s tour of lights recently, you may have seen the sign shown at the left that shows the annual expenditures for the event—$65,000 spent on Santa hats, $50,000 on cookies, and $25,000 on popcorn! In total, $643,000 is spent each year to host the incredibly popular Bentleyville light display, paid primarily through individual donations from visitors and local sponsors.
This spending alone has a significant economic impact on the city. But if you’ve ever been stuck in traffic waiting to park for the Bentleyville Christmas light display in Duluth on a Saturday night in December, you probably know that the biggest economic impact from this attraction comes from the increased tourism dollars from the thousands of annual out-of-town visitors.
A November Duluth News Tribune article notes an estimation from Visit Duluth that Bentleyville has an annual economic impact between $21 to $22 million on the city. But the BBER wanted to check that out with our own study.
Bentleyville started in 2001 with Nathan Bentley decorating his home in Esko, Minnesota, for Christmas. Just two years later, he had gone from a drive-by display to one where people would walk through his highly decorate yard, complete with Santa on the weekends. The display grew each year, even when Bentley moved to Cloquet, Minnesota, in 2004. Starting in 2009, after an invitation from Duluth’s mayor the previous year, Bentleyville took place in Bayfront Park.
The event has become a staple of Christmas in Duluth with the attraction’s website noting 232,000 visitors came from all over the state and beyond in 2021. According to a sign posted in Bentleyville, about 60% of attendees drive over 100 miles to see the attraction. This year’s attendance is estimated to be 350,000, according to a Star Tribune article. Therefore, taking those numbers, it is estimated that 210,000 people will be traveling over 100 miles to visit Bentleyville this year. These visitors will either come only to tour the park and leave Duluth, stay one or two nights in a hotel, stay overnight with family or friends, or something similar. For simplicity of our study, we will assume that half of all visitors that traveled over 100 miles are going to stay in a hotel for one night.
Using the annual event expenditures (Figure 1) along with an overnight visitor model based on past BBER tourism studies, we found that Bentleyville will help support 275 jobs with over $8.0 million in wages and benefits, will contribute more than $13.0 million to the Duluth’s gross regional product, and will contribute nearly $24.0 million in output in the form of new spending. The vast majority of the impacts are the result of out-of-town tourism spending on lodging, restaurants, and retail, while a small share (less than 2% of the total impacts) is the result of the annual event expenditures.
Not only does Bentleyville light up Duluth and brighten the holiday spirit, but it also helps support the local economy with an impact of $24.0 million!
We are looking forward to the 20th anniversary of Bentleyville next year!
Main photo: Visit Duluth