By Stephen Smoot
Last month, Wallet Hub released its yearly ranking of what they consider “fun” states.
Once again, West Virginia came in last for “fun.”
That assessment, however, counters what other outlets say. National Geographic, for example, in January stated that West Virginia whitewater was one of their 20 “Best in the World” spots for recreation.
And just two years ago, Conde Nast Traveler, Lonely Planet, and Time magazine all listed West Virginia among the leading destinations for travel, not just nationally but globally.
Numbers do not support Wallet Hub. West Virginia had approximately $7 billion worth of tourism economic impact in 2022 – a 17 percent increase since the start of the pandemic. Also since the pandemic, West Virginia’s tourism economy has expanded considerably while that if the nation itself has lagged.
Why the discrepancy?
Surveys and rankings such as this need to come served with a heavy dose of salt. Any set of criteria on which rankings like this are derived are always subjective. Someone decides which metrics and aspects should make up part of the ranking and which do not
The Wallet Hub rankings use criteria that, frankly, seem like they came from the minds of suburban college students. Two broad categories determine for Wallet Hub the level of “fun” available in each state. – entertainment and recreation establishments and nightlife.
Under entertainment and recreation, Wallet Hub gives weight to arts and entertainment establishments, “ideal” weather, restaurants, amusement parks, movie theaters, video game arcades, fitness centers, marinas, shoreline mileage, and more.
Shoreline mileage counts ocean shorelines, the shores of the Great Lakes, and water features that adjoin or flow into them.
Nightlife includes casinos, performing arts, access to bars, average cost of alcoholic beverages, music festivals, and even “time of last call.”
They also addressed a panel of “experts” to evaluate whether states should provide tax incentives to attract professional sports franchises, should legalize marijuana, and have enough establishments that allow visitors to have fun on a budget.
In some cases, “rankings” come from a set of preconceived criteria designed to create a desired result.
Wallet Hub does not seem to have gone this route. Their criteria, however, reflect a likely unintentional, but very significant, bias toward recreation that attracts a narrow band of potential tourists. One major bias comes in what Wallet Hub defines as shoreline.
Had they included banks of freshwater rivers that offer opportunities for canoeing, kayaking, or fishing, they could have accounted for the fact that Mountain State rivers serve as significant tourism destinations. The North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac, for example, has some of the best brook trout fishing south of Maine.
Had they included state parks instead of simply federal establishments, they could have counted West Virginia’s policy of free access. Most states charge fees to enjoy their state owned lands, but almost everything in a West Virginia state park outside of lodging, food, and amenities, can be had at no charge.
Nightlife figuring so large highlights the “fun” definitions of a relatively small percentage of people. Bars are a shrinking part of the recreational economy almost everywhere and older people tend to find their fun elsewhere.
It’s not that the Mountain State is not fun. West Virginia just does not offer a lot of the kind of fun that the likely young and urban or suburban writers of Wallet Hub consider important.
The point is not that such rankings are bad. They do offer a starting point for discussion of recreational opportunities and how to improve them to bring in even more visitors. Readers need to pay close attention to the criteria and methodology because they always reflect subjective choices and rarely provide a fair picture.
The most important point to remember here is that they do not offer objective truth and should never be covered by the media as if they do.
Wallet Hub does not measure a place by what truly matters, what can be seen in so much of West Virginia. It does not measure the way that much of the state welcomes visitors with pride of place. It does not measure what goes into putting on a local festival or maintain a permanent attraction, such as a museum. It never takes into account the work of so many volunteers such as Lincoln High School students whose grant work made a splendid local attraction even better.