A college survey released Thursday suggests April's Tour de Georgia had a $38.6 million impact on the state's economy.

That's up about 40 percent from last year's tour, according to the report.

The sixth annual cycling race covered over 600 miles in seven days and concluded April 27 in Atlanta.

The economic impact was determined by North Georgia College and University and Georgia Southern University using data collected by crowd surveys at all start and finish host venue locations.

In all, 1,196 completed surveys were collected between April 21-27 at the 12 host communities which staged either a tour start or a tour finish venue.

"We believe that one of the reasons for the large increase (in economic impact) over last year is inflation, particularly in gasoline," said Phyllis Isley, director of the Bureau of Business Research and Economic Development at Georgia Southern University. "Some of the increase is also due to the significant increase in the number of international visitors. The increase in international visitors is probably due to the devaluation of the dollar making a U.S. trip more affordable."

Attendance was actually down about 20 percent, but researchers still found spending increased.

About 41 percent of spectators surveyed said they spent more than one night in Georgia for the tour, and a majority of their spending went for lodging and transportation.