Our Hospitality Hero Training Day event is spearheaded by Madonna Carr and her Destination Services team. The timing of this annual event is strategic as we plan it to coincide with the time our industry celebrates National Travel & Tourism Week. The purpose of our event is to thank the loyal members of the Minneapolis hospitality industry and to provide information and data to help these professionals do their jobs better. After all, the more than 33,000 hospitality and tourism professionals who reside in Minneapolis are charged with the responsibility of keeping the promises Meet Minneapolis makes to the business, convention and leisure visitors we work to attract.

Kevin Hanstad reported a number of key statistics that relate to our local travel and tourism industry and provided insight into how we can better market our destination. The highlight of the presentation was the unveiling of our annual metro area visitor count. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area saw 31.6 million total visitors in 2015, a 2 percent increase over 2014’s 30.9 million convention and leisure travel visitors, which is a new all-time record for the area. Meet Minneapolis commissioned D.K. Shifflet & Associates to conduct the annual study, which they also conduct in numerous other communities across the country. The research shows that both the number of visitors and visitor spending increased yet again in 2015 for our metro area.

In the set of cities Minneapolis competes with for convention business, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area’s 31.6 million visitors in 2015 put it behind the metropolitan area visitor count in Chicago (52 million in 2015). Minneapolis’ visitor counts are higher than Indianapolis (26 million in 2014), St. Louis (24 million in 2014), Kansas City (24 million in 2014) and Denver (15 million in 2014). The competitive cities’ data have been made available publicly; however, they may not be comparing the same criteria and were not part of the study commissioned by Meet Minneapolis.

Visits to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area are expected to continue to increase, with a goal of increasing our visitor counts by ten million, from 26.8 million in 2011 to a goal of 36.8 million in 2017.

This is encouraging news leading into our upcoming run of mega events like the Ryder Cup, Super Bowl, and Final Four. We thank all of our partners and stakeholders for fueling the phenomenal growth Minneapolis has continued to experience. Let's keep the momentum going.

Our Hospitality Hero Training Day event is spearheaded by Madonna Carr and her Destination Services team. The timing of this annual event is strategic as we plan it to coincide with the time our industry celebrates National Travel & Tourism Week. The purpose of our event is to thank the loyal members of the Minneapolis hospitality industry and to provide information and data to help these professionals do their jobs better. After all, the more than 33,000 hospitality and tourism professionals who reside in Minneapolis are charged with the responsibility of keeping the promises Meet Minneapolis makes to the business, convention and leisure visitors we work to attract.

Kevin Hanstad reported a number of key statistics that relate to our local travel and tourism industry and provided insight into how we can better market our destination. The highlight of the presentation was the unveiling of our annual metro area visitor count. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area saw 31.6 million total visitors in 2015, a 2 percent increase over 2014’s 30.9 million convention and leisure travel visitors, which is a new all-time record for the area. Meet Minneapolis commissioned D.K. Shifflet & Associates to conduct the annual study, which they also conduct in numerous other communities across the country. The research shows that both the number of visitors and visitor spending increased yet again in 2015 for our metro area.

In the set of cities Minneapolis competes with for convention business, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area’s 31.6 million visitors in 2015 put it behind the metropolitan area visitor count in Chicago (52 million in 2015). Minneapolis’ visitor counts are higher than Indianapolis (26 million in 2014), St. Louis (24 million in 2014), Kansas City (24 million in 2014) and Denver (15 million in 2014). The competitive cities’ data have been made available publicly; however, they may not be comparing the same criteria and were not part of the study commissioned by Meet Minneapolis.

Visits to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area are expected to continue to increase, with a goal of increasing our visitor counts by ten million, from 26.8 million in 2011 to a goal of 36.8 million in 2017.

This is encouraging news leading into our upcoming run of mega events like the Ryder Cup, Super Bowl, and Final Four. We thank all of our partners and stakeholders for fueling the phenomenal growth Minneapolis has continued to experience. Let's keep the momentum going.