Located along a remote stretch of Highway 395, the Fort Independence Travel Plaza touts a dozen gas pumps, clean restrooms and made-to-order meals for travelers visiting California’s Eastern Sierra.

The facility, which provides revenue for a Paiute Indian tribe, is about to quadruple in size thanks to an $8 million federal grant that will help build a new gas station with room for cultural displays and locally made products.

It’s one of hundreds of tourism-related projects nationwide that are collectively getting about $2.4 billion from the American Rescue Plan, according to an Associated Press analysis of funds flowing from last year’s wide-ranging coronavirus relief law.

The money is paying for graffiti-resistant trash cans in Portland, Oregon, culturally diverse music festivals in Nashville, Tennessee, sports facilities in various cities and new marketing campaigns to attract tourists to particular states.

Despite high fuel prices, Americans do seem to be hitting the road. After a plunge at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, U.S. travel spending this year is projected to top $1 trillion — up 45% from its 2020 low point, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

That corresponds with a similar increase in state tourism office budgets, which have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels thanks to the federal aid.

A coronavirus relief law signed by former President Donald Trump opened the potential for federal money to be used for local tourism projects.

The subsequent pandemic relief law signed by President Joe Biden expanded that. The American Rescue Plan contained $750 million for grants for tourism, travel and outdoor recreation through the federal Economic Development Authority. It also included the tourism, travel and hospitality sector among dozens of eligible uses — alongside health care, housing and unemployment programs — for a $350 billion pool of flexible aid sent to state, local, territorial and tribal governments.

Those governments had budgeted more than $1.6 billion from those flexible funds for about 550 tourism, travel and hospitality projects as of the end of March, according to an Associated Press analysis of recently released data from the U.S. Treasury.

Those tourism projects include $425,000 in Portland to replace 200 trash cans with ones that have larger openings and harder-to-deface surfaces made of such things as metal slats or wire mesh.

Of the tourism grants awarded through the Economic Development Authority, $510 million was divided among states and territories according to a formula that took into account job losses in their leisure and hospitality sectors. An additional $240 million was set aside for competitive grants, which are still being doled out.