Tourism in Minnesota Coming Back

Duluth, Minn — After taking a step back for a couple of years, the tourism industry is starting to rebound again.

In 2022, Minnesota had over 77 million people visit the state, bringing in over 13 billion dollars to the economy.  To keep the tourism momentum going, governor Walz recommended increase covers all industries including the outdoors, parks, attractions, and restaurants. Explore Minnesota recently held a round table with entities from northeastern Minnesota to discuss how tourism benefits local businesses and communities.

Duluth’s mayor, Emily Larson spoke of the benefits for cities, “Investing in tourism is also really investing in your own community. These are quality of life amenities that are world class we get to have every day. So, when we’re investing in, whether it’s the outdoors, whether it’s restaurants, cultural activities, museums, what’s amazing about that and what’s fun is that we’re also just investing in a great way for people to live in this community every day.”

Local businesses are excited not only for what the upcoming summer tourism season will bring, but also bringing back some of what had to be put on hold during the pandemic.

For Frost River’s director or marketing, Stephanie Anderson is really looking forward to resuming the tours, “with the pandemic we had to stop the tours of our manufacturing facility, you know, too many people coming through, but we’re so excited to promote that this summer and give people a really authentic experience of walking through the workshop, seeing people sewing packs, counting rivets.”

The leisure and hospitality industry accounts for nearly 235,000 jobs across Minnesota and Explore Minnesota is the state agency responsible for promoting tourism in Minnesota. This includes marketing to neighboring states and elsewhere, advertising in key markets, and public relations to promote the state and special events happening throughout the year.