The Virginia Horse Center's Economic Impact in 2004: An Update of the 2001 Study

This work is an update of a more thorough study conducted in 2001. The purpose of that study was to determine the economic impact of the Virginia Horse Center on the Lexington-Rockbridge County area (L-R area) and the state of Virginia. This update uses current information and relationships established from the earlier study to provide data for 2004. In 2004, total output attributable to the Horse Center was $53.3 million statewide and $37.3 million in the L-R area. (For this and other comparison data see Table 1.) The statewide figure was up 28.6 percent over 2001 in current dollars. The L-R area figure was up 28.1 percent. Even after adjustment for inflation of 6.6 percent as measured by the Consumer Price Index, output rose 20.6 percent statewide and 20.2 percent locally. The major driver of total output attributable to the Horse Center is spending by show participants. Such spending was up 28.5 percent statewide and 28.6 percent for the L-R area. The principal measure used to gauge spending by show participants is the number of horse or other animal days, a figure derived by multiplying the number of animals at an event by the number of days of the event. Horse and other animal days totaled 83,962 for the twelve months ending in August 2004. They rose by 20.4 percent from 2001 to 2004.