There appears to be a marked increase in the number of tourists who visited Wisconsin destinations this past summer.
Department of Tourism spokesperson Craig Trost says final economic impact numbers aren't in yet, but there have been some indicators tourism was good.
They have what are called 'arrival' numbers...
"...Total summer arrivals were up 12 percent from last year which is exciting. Our trackable summer campaign arrivals were up 22 percent, meaning the efforts we took we could track that they were up almost a fifth more than last year. There was festival for everyone was our campaign this past summer, and with more than 1,400 festivals this past summer we set a record for several of them...."
The EAA event in Oshkosh saw a 6 percent increase to more than 600,000 visitors. 1.1 million people visited the State Fair, a new record. Trost says there were other indicators of a good year...
"...Our website traffic over at travelwisconsin.com was up significantly in the last year. We saw a growth in web sessions...up 13.8 percent year-over year. 93 percent of that increase from web sessions on social media alone..."
He says the increase in hits on the webpage drove people to the more than 1,400 events across Wisconsin this summer. Trost says the weather cooperated, for the most part, to help people visit Wisconsin sites.
Trost thinks fall should be also be good. He said there has been a lot of interest on the travel wisconsin.com website and it's Fall Color Report.
