Hitting close to home
9/11 gave jolt to Utah tourism industry, economy
Economists said the state already was feeling the effects of the dot-com bust when terrorists attacked on that September morning in 2001. And while 9/11 made that recession deeper and longer, the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City may have helped reduce the impact.
"The first thing that you want to put to mind is that (9/11) slowed down the economy, but it was slamming on its brakes before 9/11 even happened, so it's hard to say how much is associated with 9/11 and how much is associated with what was happening anyway, which is the dot-com bust," said Mark Knold, senior economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
He said the impact of 9/11 on the economy is "dwarfed" by the dot-com effect.
"With a strong economy and 9/11, we probably would have absorbed it rather quickly," Knold said. "But what we had was a souring economy with 9/11 thrown right in with it. The 9/11 economic impact is overshadowed by something much bigger that was going on (in the economy)."
Jeff Thredgold, president of Salt Lake-based Thredgold Economic Associates and economic consultant to Zions Bank, said 9/11 probably caused a longer period of economic decline in Utah and the nation than otherwise would have occurred.
"I think clearly Sept. 11 added to the longevity of the period of weakness we had, both in Utah and throughout the region, and certainly contributed to some weakness in the country. If you had to pick a number, maybe in the case of Utah, maybe it contributed to 25 percent of the decline in employment and 25 to 40 percent of the length of period of the weakness. Obviously, those are very subjective numbers."
Knold agreed that some industries — notably anything related to tourism and air travel — were hurt more than others by 9/11.
"They probably would have slowed down anyway, but they probably slowed even more than otherwise would have happened because of 9/11," Knold said.
"The Olympics did offer a really quick reprieve, and you'll take anything in a down environment. But over the long term, it didn't wash out any negatives regarding tourism from 9/11. ... It really boils down to your dependence on tourism as a percentage of your economy, and ours isn't excessive."
Again, Knold said, some parts of the state probably felt more of a tourism impact than others.
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