Greetings!  Sustain Blaine is slowly but steadily working its way toward being the chief actor and advocate for improving the valley's economic status. It is ahead of other economic development groups in how it presents Blaine County and its amenities, offers data about our area, reaches out to recruit new businesses, and pursues projects that would benefit the local economy.

Recently, however, Sustain Blaine claimed that its research shows the County's economy to be primarily based on tourism, with total taxable sales at 46% in 2006, jumping to 60% in 2011. Since Sustain Blaine's ongoing economic development strategy is likely to be based on the "tourism should be our focus" conclusion, viz Wally Huffman's appointment to the Board, let's see if it stands close scrutiny.  (These comments will be more easily understood if you go to Sustain Blaine's website for Slide 8 in the report).  

The report's data shows that the County's "heavily tourism-related" taxable sales make up the largest slice of its current $569 million pie: $227 million in taxable sales - a $33 million drop from the 2006 total of $260 million. "Weakly tourism-related" taxable sales for 2011 follow close behind: $226 million - a $256 million drop from 2006's $482 million. Note that this many-millions-of-dollars drop equals the entire heavy-tourism sector for 2006. 

In between, "moderately tourism-related" sales came in at $117 for 2011, a $39 million drop from 2006.  Overall, then, the pie charts show a drop of $320 million in tourism-related taxable sales since 2006, a drop of 36%. Does this really bode well for favoring a tourism economy? 

Perhaps the report meant to say that heavy-tourism businesses should be our future given their current and slight $1 million edge over weak-tourism businesses.  But, if weak-tourism taxable sales in 2006 were more than twice what heavy-tourism was at the time, it seems more fruitful to try to reinstate that sector. What businesses did we lose and why?  How can we get them back?

Pie charts and statistics look impressive but behind them lies a story whose elements need meaningful description. Sustain Blaine's report lacks sufficient detail to answer these questions.  Do weak tourism businesses mean massage therapists and personal trainers, or media installation companies for second homes, or weak sales in gift stores?  What exactly did we lose?

Then there are all the non-tourism related businesses that comprise our economy and are overlooked in the report (unless they are part of the weak-tourism sector).  Hardest of all to measure is this elusive entrepreneurial group - web developers, recruiters, professionals, fabricators, manufacturers, graphic designers, woodworkers, actors, and consultants - for which public statistics are lacking. They don't generate trackable sales, but they provide jobs, earn incomes, make consumer purchases, pay local taxes. The size of this sector and its contribution to our local economy remains unknown.

One thing we do know, both intuitively and based on research, is that basic rural economic development depends on expanding local entrepreneurial businesses - the mom-and-pop startups, some of which become the future Power Engineers and Rocky Mountain Hardware. 

In the end, Sustain Blaine's report is a good discussion stimulant and starting point for more research.  It raises more questions than it answers, however, about whether tourism should be our major economic development target or part of a broader effort toward growth.  

The rest of the short report paints, in my view, a more rosy picture about recovery than the data call for - a picture that may reflect the hopeful bias of those who influenced it: Fly Sun Valley Alliance, Sun Valley Marketing Alliance, Sun Valley Company, and Sun Valley Board of Realtors.     

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Now, I've definitely worked your brain with the above analysis.  If you're still awake and thinking, and like the sensation, please let me know with a donation to help support Jigsaw's weekly e-letter. Fifty dollars is what most people peg as its value but anything smaller (or larger) will be appreciated, according to your means.  As you can see below, my dog will thank you. 

Until next week....Jima Rice