(Radio Iowa) – A report from the Iowa Tourism Office finds visitors spent seven-point-three billion dollars in Iowa during 2023, an all-time record.
The report says tourists shelled out an average of 20-million dollars — per day — experiencing all that Iowa has to offer. Chelsea Lerud (la-RUDE), executive director of Iowa Travel Industry Partners, says the figures represent an increase from the year before of better than five-percent. Lerud says tourism is all about importing dollars from outside the state so local residents don’t have to pay for all of the services we enjoy and need. The study found travel-generated state and local tax receipts exceeded one-billion dollars last year, enough to pay the salaries of more than 19-thousand public school teachers.
The report says tourism plays a crucial role in Iowa’s job market, supporting nearly 71-thousand jobs, which accounts for more than five-percent of all employment in the state.
