EMPIRE -- After being voted The Most Beautiful Place in America by viewers of Good Morning America, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is already seeing a huge increase in visitors and interest.
Tens of thousands of viewers voted online for the park, which Good Morning America is calling one of the nation's best-kept secrets when it aired the winning location August 17.
Dusty Shultz, the Sleeping Bear Superintendent, says there were 500 more visitors on Saturday than there were the same day last year. There were 900 more visitors on Sunday.
Jim Madole of Grand Rapids, Mich., nominated the park. "It is peaceful and serene, a place for gazing out into the world, night or day, and realizing that the universe is truly a magical, majestic mystery, and humans are just a very small part of it all," he wrote in his submission. "Here at Sleeping Bear, I sit in awe and wonder at the perfection of Mother Nature."
Shultz also says in previous years, the majority of visitors to the dunes were from Michigan, but recent visitors and the phone calls asking about the area are from around the country, and even as far as Germany.
"We normally get ten-thousand hits on our pages a day," explained Shultz. "Last Wednesday it increased to almost sixty-thousand. We're just really thrilled that the economic impact from being named The Most Beautiful Place in America is going to help the state as well."
Studies provided by the Sleeping Bear Dunes show the traffic at the dunes directly relates to the amount of sales at local stores and restaurants.
You can find information about Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore or any of America's 394 national parks by clicking on the links or calling 231-326-5134.
