Houston Welcomed 20 Million Visitors in 2016
March 24, 2017More than 20 million visitors traveled to Houston in 2016, a figure that reflects a new record for the city and achieves a benchmark goal two years ahead of schedule.
An estimated 20.5 million domestic and international visitors came to the Bayou City during the 12-month period according to figures compiled by research group TNS Global and the State of Texas. The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau released the numbers this week ahead of the annual Houston Tourism Summit on March 30.
The overall figure reflects an estimated 17.3 million domestic business and leisure travelers and 3.2 million international travelers. Of the international visitors, 2.2 million came from Mexico alone. According to the latest figures from the State of Texas, the travel industry supports more than 140,000 jobs in the Houston region and contributes $16.5 billion to the local economy.
“The world is waking up to a new Houston. Over the past several years groups in the city have been quietly investing billions of dollars to improve our product offering, enabling us to compete globally as a tourist destination,” said Mike Waterman, president of Visit Houston. “If you have not been to Houston in the last 24 months and experienced Houston 2.0 you need to pay us a visit!”
In April 2015, Visit Houston announced a new initiative to grow leisure tourism through a multipronged effort that included a new marketing push in Mexico, the creation of an online travel packaging system and a grant program to encourage collaboration among hospitality businesses. One of the primary goals was to grow visitation from 14.8 million people in 2014 to 20 million by the end of 2018. The 2016 totals achieve just that—two years ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, annual room nights booked for future conventions increased 34 percent over the last two years to 765,401 and traffic to the VisitHouston.com network of websites grew 60% to more than 7.4 million.
Of the 17.3 million domestic travelers who came to the city in 2016, 77 percent were overnight visitors and 23 percent came for day trips, according to data from TNS. Roughly 75 percent of the domestic total came to Houston for leisure activities, while 13 percent were here for business and 12 percent characterized their trip outside of these two categories.
In addition to a plethora of praise surrounding a successful Super Bowl LI, Houston has recently received a number of accolades as a destination. Late last year TripAdvisor ranked the city No. 6 on its list of top trending travel spots to book in 2017. Forbes Travel also ranked Houston a top place to visit this year while U.S. News & World Report ranked the city No. 7 on its list of “best foodie destinations.”