By Matt Kelley (Radio Iowa)
A report from the Iowa Tourism Office finds visitors spent $7.3-billion dollars in Iowa during 2023, a new all-time record. The report says tourists shelled out an average of $20-million — per day — experiencing all that Iowa has to offer.
Chelsea Lerud, executive director of Iowa Travel Industry Partners, says the figures represent an increase from the year before of better than 5%.
“Usually, it’s in that 2-to-3% increase range,” Lerud says. “That 5% increase this year was a pleasant surprise, and it’s great to see the numbers well surpassing 2019. We’re out of that COVID downfall that the state felt in 2020.”
She says tourism is all about importing dollars from outside the state so local residents don’t have to pay for all of the services we enjoy and need.
“Visitors are contributing over $800 per home to the state, to the tax base,” Lerud says. “That means that those dollars are then filtered to the municipalities to pay for our police force and our fire and things that we love as residents that we’re not having to rely on higher property taxes to support.”
The study found travel-generated state and local tax receipts exceeded $1-billion last year, enough to pay the salaries of more than 19,000 public school teachers. Iowa has many hidden gems for tourists, in addition to a host of attractions that are well advertised.
“The Iowa State Fair had record numbers this last year,” Lerud says, “so we’ll see that reflected in the 2024 economic impact when those numbers come out. Outdoor recreation is huge for us in the state, and so we’re seeing more people come to experience our bike trails and our waterways for canoeing and kayaking and white water and enjoying the great outdoors.”
Tourism isn’t just a weekend draw, either. Larud says Iowa’s visitor economy is taking place seven days a week.
“Our partners around the state are doing a fantastic job at recruiting those regional and national-level sporting events and conferences,” she says, “which are bringing in the travelers during the week as well, not just the families jumping in the car or the retired couple coming for a weekend getaway.”
The report says tourism plays a crucial role in Iowa’s job market, supporting nearly 71,000 jobs, which accounts for more than 5% of all employment in the state.
