In this file photo from July 22, 2016, players in The Hardwood Classic AAU basketball tournament exit Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

With the polar vortex arriving, the top tourist attraction in Douglas County may be watching me jump-start my electric long johns. But most times of the year there is far more than that on the local tourism front, and a new report shows the industry has been growing.

The Lawrence convention and visitors bureau — officially the group is called eXplore Lawrence — has commissioned a report to measure how much impact tourism spending had on the local economy in 2015. Perhaps not surprisingly the commissioned report found that tourism has a lot of impact on the local economy. But the report does contain some specifics, so let’s take a look:

• Visitor spending increased by 7.6 percent — or about $17 million — in 2015. That was a significantly better growth rate than the statewide tourism industry. According to the report by Tourism Economics, the state as a whole saw visitor spending increase by 4.2 percent. In total, the report estimates there was $244 million in visitor spending in Douglas County in 2015.

• 2015 was the first full year of operation for Rock Chalk Park, which was designed, in part, to attract out-of-town visitors to youth sporting events and such. So, perhaps Rock Chalk is responsible for the strong 2015 showing. No doubt the facility played a role in the overall numbers, but it is worth noting that Douglas County’s tourism industry actually grew at a quicker pace in 2014. Visitor spending grew at 7.8 percent in 2014, which was also well above the statewide average of about 4.5 percent.

In this file photo from July 22, 2016, players in The Hardwood Classic AAU basketball tournament exit Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

• The report provides a glimpse at how some specific sectors of the tourism industry are growing: Visitor spending on lodging grew by $4 million — or about 10 percent — in 2015. That was a slightly slower growth rate than what was posted in 2014, when the industry grew by $4.4 million or about 13 percent. But a 10 percent growth rate isn’t too shabby. That number is probably one of the reasons why we are seeing several hotel projects in the city. Visitor spending on recreation, which includes the arts, grew by about $1.8 million, or about 7 percent in 2015. That compares to 4.2 percent growth in 2014.

• The report also breaks down how much visitors spend on various types of goods and services. Shockingly, spending on Honk for Hemp bumper stickers did not take the top spot. That distinction went to food and something to wash it down with. Restaurants probably are the biggest winners when tourism surges. The report found 27.4 percent of all visitor spending (about $67 million) goes toward food and beverages. Gas stations, though, aren’t far behind. The transportation category accounts for 27.3 percent of visitor spending. Here’s a look at the other categories: Lodging 17.4 percent; retail 16.7 percent; recreation 10.9 percent; and the report even measures the amount of spending on second homes in Douglas County. The report estimates that 0.3 percent of visitor spending goes toward buying a vacation home in the county. (I know every time I go on vacation I set aside 0.3 percent to buy a vacation home, which is why I own cardboard boxes in some of the best locales in America.) In case you are curious, the report estimates about $700,000 was spent in 2015 on second homes in Douglas County, which actually seems a bit low considering the price of some of the condos on the market.

• The report estimates that about 2,700 jobs in the county are directly linked to the tourism industry. It estimates those job totals grew by 5.1 percent in 2015. The report also calculated that the tourism industry generated $22.5 million in taxes that went to state and local governments.

photo by: Nick Krug

A view of Lawrence shows the Massachusetts Street and downtown on Monday, Dec. 12, 2016.

• The report also ranks Douglas County’s tourism industry against all the others in the state. Douglas County has the fifth largest amount of visitor spending of any county in the state. Douglas County captures about 3.8 percent of all the visitor spending in the state of Kansas. That’s up from about 3.5 percent in 2013. I find this an interesting number. I frequently harp on the community setting goals, and this seems like one measurement where a goal could be set. Being the fifth largest tourism county in the state is nice enough, but we are, after all, the fifth largest county in the state in terms of population.

It may be tough for Douglas County to ever become the top tourist destination in the state. We would have to knock off Johnson County, which of course attracts SUV-aficionados by the millions. Actually visitor spending also includes the spending of business travelers, so both Johnson and Sedgwick counties get boosts in that regard. But could Douglas County be something better than No. 5? After all, it has three universities, a unique downtown, a federal reservoir, unmatched basketball history, important Civil War history, and several other amenities. It will be interesting to watch what type of discussion tourism receives as the city embarks upon its strategic planning process. On the one hand, you may have some people say tourism doesn’t produce the type of high-paying jobs the community wants. But on the other hand, we have some attributes, and it should be noted the community already has invested quite a bit of money for incentives. Part of the $25 million spent on Rock Chalk Park certainly was done with attracting visitors in mind, and the city has provided tax breaks to at least two hotel projects in recent years.

In case you are curious, here is a look at the nine counties that have more than $100 million in visitor spending, and their growth rates for 2015, according to a statewide report from the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks & Tourism.

1. Johnson County: $1.6 billion visitor spending, up 6.2 percent

2. Sedgwick County: $1.4 billion, up 5 percent

3. Wyandotte County: $451.4 million, up 9.1 percent

4. Shawnee County: $323.6 million, down 5.3 percent

5. Douglas County: $244.4 million, up 7.6 percent

6. Saline County: $196.9 million, up 6.7 percent

7. Riley County: $140.3 million, up 11.2 percent

8. Ellis County: $122.0 million, up 7.1 percent

9. Ford County: $120.8 million, up 0.4 percent