The nation’s capital lured more tourists in 2010 than it had in years, posting a nearly 6 percent boost in domestic visitors last year while raking in about $400 million more in spending, D.C. tourism officials announced Tuesday. A total of 15.5 million Americans visited Washington last year, for an increase of 5.6 percent over 2009, when families limited their vacations and business travel fell because of the recession, according to the city’s tourism bureau, Destination DC. Total visitor spending, including the estimated spending by international tourists, reached $5.6 billion, for an 8.2 percent increase over 2009.
Elliott Ferguson, the bureau’s president and CEO, attributed the recovery in the still-budget-conscious consumer economy partly to the capital’s plethora of free attractions, noting “they provide an economic value.”
He added that more international tourists, who tend to spend more than their American counterparts and are flush with cash as the dollar weakens, are visiting every year.
| Capital tourism is back | ||||
| Domestic visitors | All visitors | Spending | Local tax revenue | |
| 2006 | 13.9m | 15.1m | $5.2b | $564m |
| 2007 | 14.8m | 16.2m | $5.5b | $621m |
| 2008 | 15.2m | 16.6m | $5.6b | $618m |
| 2009 | 14.8m | 16.4m | $5.2b | $585m |
| 2010 | 15.5m | TBA | $5.6b | $623m |
| Source: Destination DC | ||||
“As the value of the dollar has gone down, from an international perspective, that’s worked to our advantage,” he said.
The official international visitor count is expected to be released this summer. After a record 1.6 million overseas visitors in 2009, early indicators point toward modest gains from emerging markets but slightly weaker visitation from Western Europe as the economy there has faltered, officials said.
The increase in visitors also helped boost hotel occupancy by a percentage point to 74.1 percent for the year. However, because the city added hotel rooms last year
and the average daily cost grew to just over $200, the economic impact to D.C. was more significant and lodging spending increased by 3.4 percent.
In addition to lodging, visitor spending last year increased in all major categories, including food and entertainment. The spending from tourists accounts for more than half of the sales tax generated by the city annually and supports more than 70,000 jobs, making the hospitality industry the city’s second-largest employer after the federal government.
D.C. congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said she carried those numbers with her into every Capitol Hill meeting she attended leading up to the threatened government shutdown last month.
“Those numbers mean everything to the District of Columbia,” Norton said.
And although hotels stays fell in early 2011, officials said they expected the upswing from last year to continue. Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War beginning this year and next year’s 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, D.C. will benefit as a key historic attraction.
