Las Vegas
Visitors directly spent $35.5 billion on such things as hotel rooms, restaurants, souvenirs and tours in 2016, a 16 percent increase over the previous year. While the total number of visitors increased just 1.5 percent to 42.9 million, the number of business tourists jumped 7.1 percent to 6.3 million. Business visitors accounted for two-thirds of the total increase.
Visitors on average spent $827 during their stay in 2016. A $10 per person increase, roughly equivalent to the price of a Las Vegas T-shirt, would drive the economic impact past $60 billion.
?Business travelers have a tendency to spend more and that helped drive these numbers,? said Jeremy Aguero, an analyst at Applied Analysis.
New Jersey
http://newjersey.news12.com/story/4...ourism-spending-hit-dollar447-billion-in-2018
ATLANTIC CITY -
New Jersey's beaches, casinos, forests and cities attracted tourists who spent nearly $45 billion last year ? and Gov. Phil Murphy, as well as state officials, are looking to the future to keep the tourism numbers booming.
Gov. Phil Murphy says tourism spending in New Jersey has increased for nine years in a row,
and with a new focus on international travelers, the governor says the American Dream mall, as well as Atlantic City, will draw 150 million visitors by 2023.
The American Dream is a 3-million square foot shopping, entertainment and dining complex set to open in a few months.
There will be a huge ice skating rink surrounded by three stories of shops, a food court and a window looking into the water park, with a roller coaster inside.
Speaking at a tourism conference Thursday in Trenton, Murphy said
the tourism industry generated $5 billion in state and local taxes in 2018. He said about 111 million people visited the Garden State last year, up more than 7% from the previous year.
"We have been blessed with one of the most advantageous locations of any state in the country," says Gov. Murphy. ?From every one of our 8,700 square miles, we have an awesome story to tell the nation and the world, and together we're telling it, and together we're getting more and more people to listen.
Tourism is the state's seventh-largest industry, supporting nearly 334,000 jobs.
When indirect jobs, such as those that supply the industry, are included, the figure rises to over 531,000 jobs.
Food and beverages, and lodging, accounted for the largest share of tourism spending.
