ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ) – The Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau released their annual report Wednesday of just how powerful the tourism industry is in Brown County.
In 2016, 5.55 million people visited the area with an economic impact of $638 million in direct spending.
Director of Marketing Brenda Krainik says she’s thrilled to see a 4 percent increase in spending for the year.
“Seeing them (people) come into the community, enjoy what we have here…whether it’s attractions or it’s hotels that they’re staying in, that revenue really showed up in this year’s numbers,” said Krainik.
CVB President Brad Toll, thinks a couple of events lead to the increase in spending.
“The LSU Badger game was certainly fantastic and brought a lot of people in. It was like an extra home Packer game. But our convention center expansion…2016 was the first year that we had all of these big conventions that travel around Wisconsin and they outgrew us and they stopped coming. With the expansion we were able to get them back them back in again.”
Toll says that one of the places they like to see growth is in overnight stays. 2016 saw a 4.3 percent increase in that area.
“That’s what we need to see, is increases in those overnight stays. That’s what keeps the hotel healthy. It keeps the people employed that they hired. It keeps the banks that they’re paying off their loans with, it keeps them happy,” said Toll.
The third quarter, July through September, showed the most spending activity with $205 million dollars.
In total sales, a record $1.1 billion tourism dollars flowed through the local economy.
Read the entire annual report at www.greenbay.com/media.
