Background Resources: Surveys

San Juan County and National Park Service worked in cooperation with the San Juan Islands Terrestrial Managers Group to conduct a series of surveys, asking a sample of visitors, residents and businesses on the islands about tourism issues. These surveys provided a unique opportunity for the public to help government officials make good tourism decisions which would maximize benefits and minimize impacts.

2019 Tourism and Visitor Management in the San Juan Islands

In 2019, San Juan County and the National Park Service worked cooperatively with the same group of agencies and Confluence to conduct additional studies (published January 2020). These included several reports as listed below. The resident and business survey reports provide parallel information to the 2017 ferry survey and is probably the most relevant for tourism planning, but the survey of all-island boaters and remote island boaters provides useful information for those visitor sectors.

Part 1: Survey of residents and businesses: This report summarized profiles of residents and businesses, including length of residency and proportion who work on the islands. Profiles of businesses include estimates of tourism-related revenue. The bulk of the survey focused on parallel questions to the ferry survey (of visitors) about reasons for living/working on the islands, traffic and congestion, crowding at sites, sustainable tourism, capacity, specific management actions, ferry use, and targets for tourism promotion.
Part 2: Survey of all-island boaters: This report focused on visiting boaters at the main marinas on the islands, and asked parallel questions to the visitor, resident, and business surveys of this specialized type of visitor, including reasons for visiting, onshore activities, crowding at sites, sustainable tourism, capacity, specific management actions, and Orca whale management issues.
Part 3: Survey of remote island boaters: This report focused on boaters that visited select remote islands and offered additional information about these boaters. It included some parallel questions to the visitor survey about reasons for visiting and evaluations of crowding, with other questions similar to the 2017 onsite surveys about evaluating conditions and facilities on remote islands, as well as specific management actions for those islands.
Part 4: Conclusions and recommendations: This report is perhaps the most useful of all the Confluence-prepared documents; it summarizes major findings and puts them in context for future tourism and natural resource planning. For readers looking to minimize their homework for the tourism plan, this shorter document is a good place to start. It includes several broad conclusions about what previous studies described, as well as a starting list of specific management actions (organized by island and for all islands) that might be considered in a Sustainable Tourism Master Plan.

2017 San Juan Islands Visitors Study

San Juan County, the National Park Service, and the Terrestrial Managers Group worked cooperatively with Confluence on a multifaceted Visitor Study in 2017 (published February 2018). The study had several components as listed below. This is the primary document for learning about visitors to the San Juan Islands, as well as background information about visitation levels and the accommodation options they use. The study is pre-pandemic, so some visitation trends may be dated.

Onsite survey: This element surveyed people at visitor sites or park units. It provides information about evaluations of crowding and facilities, and profiles visitors and residents that used these sites.
Ferry survey: This element surveyed people waiting for ferries to Anacortes (mostly visitors, but some residents). It provided more complete profiles of respondent characteristics, their recreation participation, the attractions they visited, reasons for visiting, evaluations of use densities at beach and marine viewing areas, and support for management actions.
Accommodation inventory: This element reviewed the numbers and types of overnight accommodations used by visitors, and then compared them with visitation estimates. It includes discussion of Vacation Rentals and use of vacant or second homes.
Visitation analysis: This element described patterns and trends of visitation numbers from Washington State and other ferries, cruise ships, airlines and charters, and private boats.
Counts and distributions: This element provided site-specific use information at visitor sites, park units, or along road segments.

2017 Visitor Management Assessment

This February 2017 report summarized an Oct 2016 workshop among agencies and stakeholders about SJI recreation and tourism issues. The workshop reviewed existing information, brainstormed and prioritized issues, and considered example management actions. Notable output from the workshop included initial analysis of existing information, long-term visitation trends, recreation impacts, and visitor management “hot spots.” The document included descriptions of information gaps and some study options to fill those gaps (which were later addressed with the 2017 and 2019 studies).