Will Sleeping Bear Dunes break last year’s record for annual visitors to our National Park? 1,683,553 people visited Sleeping Bear in 2016, smashing the previous record of 1,535,633 set in 2015. The visitation tally in 2017 is more than 26,000 people ahead of last year’s pace, following a strong April and September, and a monster July.
A new National Park Service report shows that 1,531,560 visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in 2012 spent nearly $152 million in communities near the Park. That spending supported 2,818 jobs in the local area.
Ever since Wednesday, August 17, Northern Michiganders have both embraced and grappled with the news that the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and surrounding region are considered the “most beautiful place in America” — at least according to 22 percent of 100,000 voters who participated in the ABC show Good Morning America’s online competition the second week of August.