Liz Farquhar, liz.farquhar@asu.edu
(480) 965-7774
Timothy Hogan, Center for Business Research
(480) 965-5463
Tim.Hogan@asu.edu
Stephen Happel, Department of Economics
(480) 965-5454
Stephen.Happel@asu.edu
June 26, 2003

State's 'snowbird' count estimated at 300,000 or more

An estimated 300,000 or more winter residents - popularly known as "snowbirds" - were living in Arizona at the height of the 2002-03 winter season, according to a study by the Center for Business Research at Arizona State University.

The Center has conducted an annual survey of mobile home/RV/travel trailer parks in the Phoenix area for the past 19 years. In 1990-91 the study was expanded to include areas outside the Phoenix/Apache Junction area. Since then, the survey has included parks in an 11-county region (previous research indicated few winter residents in the four northern/eastern counties of Apache, Coconino, Navajo, and Greenlee).

The purpose of the annual winter resident study is to estimate the size and the economic contribution of the large number of part-time residents who spend the winter season in Arizona, says Dr. Timothy Hogan, Center director. "We know that snowbirds also stay in single-family homes, townhouses, condominiums, apartments, hotels and motels, with friends and relatives, and on public lands. Unfortunately, no equivalent reliable estimate exists for the number of Arizona snowbirds staying in accommodations other than mobile homes and RV/travel trailer parks."

Among the findings of this year's survey:

• An estimated 84,000 winter residents lived in Phoenix area RV/ travel trailer/ mobile home parks at the height of the 2002-03 season. An additional 68,000 were living in similar parks outside the Phoenix/Apache Junction area during the same period.
• The typical seasonal household stayed four months and spent an estimated $2,000 per month while in Arizona. Based upon these figures, seasonal residents staying in area RV/travel trailer/mobile home parks in the state spent approximately $340 million during the 2002-03 winter season.
• Using the same assumptions, consumer spending by snowbird households living in parks in the rest of the study area would have been about $270 million. Overall, park snowbirds throughout the state injected more than $600 million into the Arizona economy during the 2002-03 winter season.

Emerging trends are making it more difficult each year to pinpoint a winter visitor population total. There is anecdotal information that more snowbirds have apparently moved into second homes, condominiums, and apartments in large numbers. Nationwide there are now 3.6 million seasonal homes - up from 3.1 million in 1990 and 1.7 million in 1980, according to 2000 Census figures - and second homes comprised 6 percent of home sales in 2001. In the Phoenix area the proportion is much higher - local real estate analysts estimate that as many as one-fourth of home sales in 2001 were not primary residences.

Purchases of motor homes and other RV's also have increased in recent years, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association. Evidence of this trend on the Arizona snowbird industry may be the jump in the proportion of short-term stays reported in this year's park census.

"For these and other reasons, estimates of the total snowbird population based upon the methodology used in the past are suspect," said Dr. Stephen Happel, professor of economics and co-author of the study. "Without much more extensive survey work, an accurate count of the total number of winter residents is impossible, but taking these kinds of anecdotal information into account, a guess of 'more than 300,000' might be a speculative but reasonable estimate of the overall snowbird population."

ASU

The full text of this analysis appears in the June 2003 issue of AZB/Arizona Business, a publication of the Center for Business Research. The Center is a part of the L. William Seidman Research Institute in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. The Seidman Institute is an affiliation of six research centers that serves as a link between the local, state, national and international business communities and the creative and intellectual resources of the nationally ranked School of Business.