Tourism

Beaches are the lead tourist destination of the United States, and coastal states garner about 85 percent of all tourism-related revenue.  A 2006  poll of New Jersey beachgoers revealed that 15 percent would be more likely to visit the beach with a wind farm ten kilometers offshore, and 72 percent would not be more or less likely to visit. A study conducted at Delaware beaches found that about one-quarter of beachgoers would switch beaches if the project was ten kilometers offshore. Positive

feelings about wind farms increase when the turbines are sited at greater distances. The Delaware poll found that 94 percent of tourists  would return to a beach with wind turbines 22  kilometers offshore, and 99  percent would return if  the turbines were too far from the coast to be visible.   Wind farms polled more favorably than fossil fuel  power plants: 74 percent of the Delaware tourists said they would visit a beach with offshore wind turbines, whereas 61 percent said they would visit the same beach with a coal or natural gas plant located the same distance inland.  Studies in Europe  where offshore wind farms already exist have found similar patterns of support among tourists.