Tourism improves the economy of Vernon County

Friday, December 27, 2019

As we are coming close the New Year, I have a lot to be grateful for this vacation. As you likely know, the main focus of the Department of Tourism is to motivate the travelers to experience Wisconsin. We work personally with destination marketing organizations, industry associations, and attractions all through the state to provide a powerful economy for tourism. And with so many exclusive destinations along with experiences that makes Wisconsin truly special. It’s not unexpected that there are positive signs that shows Wisconsin tourism is rising.

The financial benefits of travel are huge. The tourism sector is a $21.6 billion driver of Wisconsin economy and helps in generating 199,073 jobs in the state. With rise in entertainment and recreation taxable sales doubling earlier three years’ average growth, there are enough reasons for optimism. As Wisconsin visitors churn out $1.6 billion in state and local tax revenue, the Vernon County news is positive with visitor spending going up $40.1 million, a 10% increase over the previous year.

The internal tracking metrics of the state shows the Travel Wisconsin summer 2019 marketing campaign influenced people statewide and drew new visitors as well. With the help of digital creative optimization, we expanded our display ads from 30 variations in 2018 to 1,945 in 2019. The results show an upward tick in display performance of 68% in general. Social media campaign performance increased 93% year-over-year, and ad-exposed tracking metric shows a 22% rise in people traveling to destinations over 90 miles from their homes after clicking on our optimized ads.

Summer was not the only great season for Wisconsin. For those anxious about early winter stunted fall tourism, Google Analytics of the 2019 Fall Color Report at TravelWisconsin.com indicates wonderful interest in the fall colors of Wisconsin. The Fall Color Report’s record-breaking 964,497 pageviews represent an 88.78% increase. In fact, TravelWisconsin.com of late reached an unprecedented high of 10 million web sessions in 2019. Our Joint Effort Marketing (JEM) program that supports non-profits promote local events also saw success. This year, the Department funded 62 projects awarding a total of over $1.1 million.

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