It’s National Travel and Tourism Week (Sunday, May 7-Saturday, May 13) — an annual celebration of US travelers and their “essential role in stimulating economic growth, cultivating vibrant communities, creating quality job opportunities, inspiring new businesses, and elevating the quality of life for Americans every day.”
Music City has quite the “reputation” for being a tourist hot spot and this past weekend proved that. Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour broke Nissan Stadium attendance records on Friday and Saturday, with the venue hosting 200,000+ concert-goers over three nights. Combine that with three university graduations and your typical weekend travelers, and we’ve got one packed house.
Let’s crunch some 2022 numbers from the Nashville Convention and Visitor’s Corp to back this up.
The visitors
- Nearly 15 million people visited Nashville in 2022 — enough to fill Bridgestone Arena 750 times.
- In 2022, each Nashville visitor spent ~$621, equating to roughly $284 a day.
- Out of state visitors are most commonly coming from Atlanta, Chicago, and St. Louis. The city’s top three international markets include Canada, the UK, and Germany.
The industry
- Hotel room sales broke $200 million in October 2022 — a record-setting month.
- Davidson County projected a 27% hotel demand growth for 2022 over the previous year.
- Adding to the pipeline, 2,544 hotel rooms are expected to open by the close of 2024.
- The Nashville International Airport also saw a record-breaking 2022 with 20+ million passengers — a 29% growth from 2021.
The talk
Nashville landed on numerous lists just last year, applauding the music scene, hotels, food + drink, and more. Here a few must-reads:
- “50 Best Places to Travel in 2023” | Travel + Leisure
- “The South’s Best Cities 2023” | Southern Living
- “Travel Guide’s 40 Most Anticipated Hotel Openings of 2022” | Forbes
- “Best New Restaurants in America, 2022” | Esquire