Twin Cities a hit with tourists in 2017, which saw record visitor numbers
Tourist can't get enough of the Spoonbridge and Cherry, it seems, as the Twin Cities saw a record number of visitors in 2017.
That's according to Meet Minneapolis, which revealed statistics in a recent presentation that show 33.3 million people visited the metro area last year.
That's a record number, beating the previous record of 32.5 million set the year before.
In total, these visitors are believed to have generated a whopping $7.8 billion for the local economy – which works out at a spend of around $234 per visitor (they must have got a seriously good deal on hotels...)
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Of the 33.3 million who sampled the best of what the metro has to offer, 24.2 million of them were here for pleasure, not business.
Meet Minneapolis has set a target of attracting 50 million annual visitors to the metro by 2030.
And while 2017 was a record-setters, there's a seriously good chance that the record could be broken again in 2018, considering the huge influx of visitors in February for the Super Bowl.
The big events will continue in 2019, when the NCAA Final Four is held at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Explore Minnesota says the state's tourism industry has been trending upward for years now, with sales in the leisure and hospitality industry hitting $15 billion in 2016.
Some 265,000 Minnesotans are employed in the tourism industry.
