FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area visited by 27.9 million in 2012

Meet Minneapolis study shows increased visitor counts and spending

(MINNEAPOLIS) May 28, 2013 Meet Minneapolis, Convention and Visitors Association, announced today that a study conducted by D.K. Shifflet & Associates, Ltd., shows that both the number of visitors and visitor spending increased in 2012. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area saw 27.9 million total visitors in 2012, a 4.1 percent increase over 2011s 26.8 million convention and leisure travel visitors.

Those visitors spent $6.885 billion in the area, an increase of 5.5 percent over 2011, when spending was $6.524 billion. The number of leisure visitors alone also increased 4.1 percent to 20.3 million in 2012 from 19.5 million in 2011, with their spending increasing to $4.738 billion, or 5.7 percent over $4.483 billion spent in 2011.

This visitor increase is a solid start to meet our goal of bringing in 10 million additional visitors metro-wide from 2011 to 2017, said Melvin Tennant, president and CEO, Meet Minneapolis. We will achieve this goal by selling and marketing the city of Minneapolis as a premiere destination for conventions, meetings, small groups and leisure travelers. Perhaps more importantly, this growth will equate to an economic impact of $1.6 billion with the increased visitor spending in our hotels, restaurants, stores and entertainment venues.

In the set of cities Minneapolis competes for convention business with, Minneapolis 27.9 million visitors in 2012 put it just behind Chicago (42 million, 2011 count) and Dallas (29.97 million, 2011 count). Visitor counts lower than Minneapolis were Saint Louis (22 million in 2010), Indianapolis (22 million in 2011), Kansas City (22 million in 2010) and Denver (13 million in 2011). New Orleans reported 9.01 million for 2012, and Milwaukees 7 million visitors in 2011 were last in the competitive set. The competitive cities data have been made available publically; however, they may not be comparing the same criteria and were not part of the study commissioned by Meet Minneapolis.

PHOTO ATTACHED; CUTLINE

Downtown skyscrapers and the scenic natural environment welcome millions of visitors each year to Minneapolis, City by Nature.

ABOUT MEET MINNEAPOLIS

Meet Minneapolis is a private, not-for-profit, member-based association. It actively promotes and sells the Minneapolis area as a destination for conventions and meetings, works to maximize the visitor experience and markets the city as a desirable tourist destination to maximize the economic benefit of the greater Minneapolis area.

Online: www.minneapolis.org and http://go.minneapolis.org

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/meetminneapolis?ref=ts

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/meetminneapolis

On Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/meetminneapolis/

MEDIA CONTACT

Kristen Montag, media & communication manager, 612.767.8038, kristenm@minneapolis.org, Minneapolis_PR on Twitter.

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