FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area visited by 29.4 million in 2013

Meet Minneapolis-commissioned study shows increased visitor counts and spending

(MINNEAPOLIS) May 16, 2014 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 2013. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area saw 29.4 million total visitors in 2013, a 5.4 percent increase over 2012s 27.9 million convention and leisure travel visitors.

Those visitors spent $7.107 billion in the area, an increase of 3.2 percent over 2012, when spending was $6.885 billion. The number of leisure visitors alone also increased 6.9 percent to 21.7 million in 2013 from 20.3 million in 2012, with their spending increasing to $4.974 billion, or 5.0 percent over $4.738 billion spent in 2012.

As an organization that sells and markets the city of Minneapolis as the destination of choice for conventions, meetings, small groups and leisure travelers, we are elated to hear about this boost in tourism, said Melvin Tennant, president and CEO, Meet Minneapolis. We are on track to achieve our goal of reaching 36.8 million visitors by 2017.

In the set of cities Minneapolis competes for convention business with, Minneapolis 29.4 million visitors in 2013 put it just behind Chicago (48.4 million, 2013 count) and Dallas (44.0 million, 2013 count). Visitor counts lower than Minneapolis were Indianapolis (26.0 million in 2012), Kansas City (22.3 million in 2012), St. Louis (21.6 million in 2011), Denver (13.6 million in 2012), New Orleans (9.3 million in 2013) and Milwaukee (7.0 million in 2011). 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.

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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