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Ocean City, Baltimore and Frederick chasing longer stays, stronger hotel demand and fresh visitor spending in 2026. Maryland is entering a crucial new phase for travel and tourism. Ocean City, Baltimore and other cities are preparing for stronger visitor demand in 2026. Meanwhile, tourism strategies are changing fast.
Destinations are targeting longer stays, higher spending and stronger hotel performance. Ocean City is expanding sports, meetings and group travel. Baltimore is strengthening its urban tourism offer. Frederick is investing in destination development and visitor infrastructure. As a result, Maryland’s travel market could see a meaningful upturn as cities broaden their appeal. However, the biggest opportunity is not simply attracting more tourists. It is turning visits into overnight stays, local spending and repeat travel.
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Maryland tourism is entering 2026 with a strong economic base, but its cities are increasingly competing for a more valuable traveller: one who stays overnight, spends locally and returns for events, culture, food, sport and leisure. The latest complete statewide figures show 45.8 million visitors generated $21.2 billion in spending in 2024, while 2026 strategies are shifting towards longer stays, stronger hotel demand and more diversified travel. Maryland Office of Tourism Development’s latest tourism research.
Maryland tourism generated $21.2 billion in visitor spending in 2024, supported approximately 194,000 jobs and produced $2.5 billion in state and local tax revenue, underlining the importance of travel to communities across the state. Maryland Tourism Economic Impact Research
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The latest annual report from the Maryland Office of Tourism Development recorded 45.8 million domestic and international visitors in 2024, a 1.5% increase from 2023, while visitor spending rose 3.2%, giving the state’s travel industry a strong platform entering 2026. Maryland Tourism Development Board Annual Report
The headline visitor number does not tell the complete tourism story because Maryland recorded 17.61 million domestic overnight person-trips in 2024, compared with 27.46 million day trips, according to the state’s FY2026 Tourism Marketing and Development Plan. Maryland FY2026 Tourism Marketing and Development Plan
That distinction matters because overnight visitors create additional opportunities for hotels, restaurants, attractions, retailers and transportation businesses, making room nights and visitor spending increasingly important measures of tourism performance across Maryland’s cities.
Leisure travel accounted for 36.96 million domestic person-trips in Maryland in 2024, representing 82% of domestic visitor volume, while business travel accounted for 8.11 million trips and 18% of the total. Maryland FY2026 Tourism Marketing and Development Plan
The figures show why Maryland’s tourism destinations continue to invest in beaches, waterfronts, historic districts, food, cultural attractions, outdoor activities and events, while also developing business travel and group tourism to strengthen demand beyond traditional leisure periods.
Baltimore remains one of Maryland’s most important tourism centres, combining waterfront attractions, museums, restaurants, sporting events, cruise activity, conventions and business travel within a major urban destination.
The city’s tourism economy also benefits from its position as a large regional population centre and visitor source market, creating a two-way relationship in which Baltimore residents travel elsewhere in Maryland while visitors arrive in the city for leisure and business purposes.
Baltimore’s latest city budget information points to strengthening hotel demand, with calendar-year 2024 hotel demand increasing 5% and the average nightly room rate rising 11.7%, showing that accommodation performance remains an important part of the city’s travel economy.
The city’s tourism strategy places considerable emphasis on destination marketing, convention business and attracting visitors who can contribute to local spending, giving hotels, restaurants, attractions and other tourism businesses a broader customer base.
Annapolis has a distinctive position in Maryland tourism because its historic streets, waterfront, maritime identity, restaurants, cultural attractions and Chesapeake Bay experiences allow visitors to combine several activities within one compact destination.
The City of Annapolis estimates around four million visitors annually, illustrating the scale of tourism activity generated by the state capital and its surrounding visitor economy. City of Annapolis Office of Economic Development
Annapolis benefits from a tourism model that is not dependent on one attraction or one type of traveller, with heritage tourism, sailing, dining, shopping, events and waterfront experiences creating multiple reasons for visitors to stay longer.
That diversity is particularly valuable for Maryland tourism because travellers who extend a trip from a day visit into an overnight stay have more opportunities to spend across accommodation, food, retail and attractions.
Ocean City remains one of Maryland’s biggest leisure destinations, reporting approximately eight million visitors annually and around 10,000 hotel rooms, alongside a substantial condominium accommodation market.
The resort is now placing greater emphasis on meetings, conventions, sports tournaments and group travel as it seeks to strengthen midweek and shoulder-season demand, with the town launching Discover Ocean City, MD in 2026 as a dedicated destination sales brand. Ocean City’s 2026 tourism strategy announcement
The new destination-sales approach is designed to attract event organisers and meeting planners while complementing Ocean City’s established leisure tourism marketing, giving the resort another route to hotel occupancy outside its busiest summer periods. Ocean City Tourism’s 2026 destination sales strategy
Sports tournaments, conventions and large-scale events can bring groups into the resort during periods when traditional beach travel is weaker, creating additional room nights and supporting restaurants, attractions, retail businesses and local services.
Frederick County presents a different model for Maryland tourism, with its visitor economy built around heritage, outdoor recreation, food, craft beverages, arts, events and regional travel rather than dependence on a traditional beach season.
The latest figures from Visit Frederick show that 2.1 million visitors travelled to Frederick County in 2024, generating $564 million in tourism-related revenue and supporting more than 6,100 tourism jobs. Visit Frederick tourism statistics
Frederick’s 2024 visitor spending increased 4.6% from the previous year to reach a record $564 million, while visitor numbers exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the first time since 2019, according to Visit Frederick’s annual tourism report. Visit Frederick’s 2025 annual tourism report
The performance gives Frederick a strong base for its 2026–2031 tourism strategy, which focuses on continued tourism growth while protecting quality of life and ensuring that the visitor economy delivers benefits for local communities. Visit Frederick’s 2026–2031 strategic plan
A major hotel and conference development is also strengthening Frederick’s ability to compete for business tourism and larger events, with the Marriott Downtown Frederick at Carroll Creek breaking ground in February 2026.
The project will include 204 guest rooms, more than 26,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space and a 250-space public parking garage, with completion scheduled for 2027. Maryland Governor’s Office announcement on the Frederick hotel project
The new conference infrastructure could help Frederick capture larger meetings and business events that require substantial accommodation capacity, giving the destination another way to increase overnight tourism alongside its existing leisure market.
For the wider Maryland travel industry, the development illustrates how hotel investment can influence tourism beyond room supply by creating demand for restaurants, attractions, transport, retail and event services.
Maryland’s FY2026 tourism marketing plan shows that the state’s overnight tourism market remains strongly concentrated in nearby metropolitan areas, with Washington, D.C./Hagerstown accounting for 18% of overnight origin markets and Baltimore contributing another 14%.
New York and Philadelphia each account for 10%, followed by Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York at 4%, Wilkes-Barre-Scranton at 3%, and several markets in Virginia, Massachusetts, Georgia and the wider East Coast. Maryland FY2026 Tourism Marketing and Development Plan.
The source-market pattern gives Maryland a major advantage because many of its strongest tourism markets are within relatively easy driving distance, supporting weekend breaks, short holidays, repeat visits and event-related travel.
For cities such as Ocean City, Baltimore, Annapolis and Frederick, the challenge is increasingly about converting this strong regional travel interest into overnight stays and higher visitor spending, rather than simply increasing the number of people who arrive.
Ocean City’s 2026 tourism strategy illustrates how destinations are responding to changes in travel behaviour by targeting demand beyond the traditional summer leisure visitor, particularly through meetings, conventions, sports and group travel. Ocean City Tourism Department’s 2026 strategy
The approach also creates opportunities for travel businesses to sell experiences around events, encouraging visitors to extend trips and spend more time exploring the resort instead of treating Ocean City as a single-purpose beach destination.
The state’s tourism economy now spans a broad range of travel products, from Baltimore’s urban attractions and conventions to Annapolis’ maritime heritage, Ocean City’s beach and event tourism, and Frederick’s heritage, food and outdoor experiences.
This diversity gives Maryland tourism resilience because visitor demand does not depend entirely on one destination, one season or one traveller segment, while new hotel and conference investments can create additional capacity for overnight travel.
These priorities reflect a broader shift in Maryland tourism towards visitor value, accommodation demand and destination diversification, rather than measuring success only by the number of people who cross into a city or county.
Maryland tourism has moved through three distinct stages: record visitor spending in 2024, stronger tourism-related tax and hotel performance in 2025, and a 2026 focus on longer stays, meetings, sports, events and destination diversification.
2024 provides the latest complete statewide tourism baseline, with Maryland welcoming 45.8 million domestic and international visitors and recording $21.2 billion in visitor spending, according to the Maryland Office of Tourism Development. Visitor volume increased 1.5% year on year, while spending rose 3.2%, showing that the value of travel was growing faster than the number of visitors. Maryland Tourism Annual Report
The state’s tourism economy also supported approximately 194,000 jobs and generated $2.5 billion in state and local tax revenue, confirming the scale of tourism’s contribution to Maryland’s wider economy. Maryland Tourism Industry Research
The 2024 data also shows an important distinction between day and overnight travel, with Maryland recording about 17.6 million overnight domestic person-trips compared with 27.5 million day trips.
That matters because overnight visitors have more opportunities to spend on hotels, restaurants, attractions, retail and transport, making hotel demand a crucial indicator for the future performance of Maryland tourism. Maryland FY2026 Tourism Marketing and Development Plan
2025 brought a different set of indicators, as Maryland’s tourism-related tax collections and accommodation performance provided evidence of continued economic momentum.
The state’s tourism-related Sales and Use Tax revenue reached nearly $2.3 billion in FY2025, while adjusted tourism SUT reached $660.1 million, an increase of 4.8%. Tourism-related lodging revenue also recorded particularly strong growth, rising 16.6% to approximately $214.6 million.
Frederick County offers one of the clearest destination-level comparisons. Visitor spending reached a record $564 million in 2024, up 4.6% from the previous year, while hotel rental tax revenue climbed to $65.5 million in FY2025, a 7% increase from FY2024. Visit Frederick’s FY2025 tourism results
The destination also welcomed 2.1 million travellers in 2024, surpassing pre-pandemic visitation for the first time since 2019, indicating that tourism growth was translating into stronger accommodation and local economic activity. Visit Frederick’s annual tourism report
2026 is not yet comparable with 2024 and 2025 on a full-year basis, because Maryland’s official economic-impact reports cover the previous calendar year and the complete 2026 report will only become available after the year ends. Maryland Office of Tourism Development economic-impact research
Instead, the current year’s tourism story is emerging through destination-level performance, new marketing strategies and investment designed to increase overnight stays, extend seasons and attract higher-value travel.
Ocean City provides the clearest example of this 2026 strategy. The town launched Discover Ocean City, MD, a destination-sales brand designed to strengthen meetings, conventions, sports and group travel while increasing midweek, shoulder-season and year-round visitation. Ocean City Tourism’s 2026 destination strategy
The change is significant because Ocean City has traditionally depended heavily on summer leisure tourism, while the new approach seeks to generate demand from tournaments, conferences, group events and other activities that can fill hotel rooms outside the busiest periods.
This strategy reflects a broader shift across Maryland. In 2024, the priority was demonstrating that tourism had reached record economic levels; in 2025, stronger tax and lodging figures provided evidence of continued value, while 2026 is increasingly focused on how long visitors stay and what they spend.
For destinations, attracting a visitor for an overnight trip can be more valuable than simply increasing day-trip numbers, particularly when accommodation, dining, entertainment and retail businesses all benefit from extended stays.
Frederick is also using 2026 to formalise its next phase of tourism growth. Visit Frederick has adopted a 2026–2031 strategic plan focused on increasing visitation and visitor spending while managing growth and protecting quality of life for local communities. Visit Frederick’s 2026–2031 Strategic Plan
The strategy signals a move away from simply measuring tourism by visitor numbers and towards a broader destination-management approach involving economic benefits, community sentiment, local businesses and sustainable growth.
The available evidence creates a straightforward picture of Maryland tourism:
The comparison should not be presented as three directly comparable annual visitor totals because the 2026 full-year numbers do not yet exist, while 2025 figures are often reported on a fiscal-year basis. Maryland’s own tourism research confirms that its economic-impact studies report on the previous calendar year. Maryland’s official tourism research programme.
| Indicator | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland visitor volume | 45.8 million | Full-year statewide figure not yet published | Full-year figure not yet available |
| Visitor spending | $21.2 billion | Full-year statewide figure not yet published | Full-year figure not yet available |
| Total tourism economic impact | $32.3 billion | Full-year comparable figure not yet published | Not yet available |
| Tourism-supported jobs | 193,845 | Comparable annual figure not yet published | Not yet available |
| State/local tourism tax contribution | $2.5 billion | FY2025 tourism-attributed SUT nearly $2.3 billion | Full-year not available |
| Adjusted tourism SUT | — | $660.1 million, +4.8% | Not yet available |
| Tourism lodging tax/SUT category | — | $214.6 million, +16.6% | Full-year not available |
| Restaurant tourism tax category | — | $299.8 million, essentially flat | Full-year not available |
| Main trend | Recovery and growth | Stronger tourism tax and lodging performance | Diversification, longer stays and year-round demand |
What the three years do show is a clear evolution in the state’s tourism priorities. 2024 demonstrated scale, 2025 demonstrated economic resilience, and 2026 is about building a more diversified and higher-value visitor economy.
For Maryland’s leading destinations, the next measure of success will therefore be more than how many travellers arrive; it will be whether those travellers stay longer, return more often, attend events, book accommodation and distribute their spending across the wider tourism economy.
“Maryland’s tourism performance demonstrates the strength of destinations that understand how travellers are changing and respond with a wider mix of experiences. Baltimore, Annapolis, Ocean City and Frederick each have a distinctive tourism identity, yet all can benefit from stronger overnight demand, regional source markets and higher visitor spending. Ocean City’s focus on sports, meetings and group travel is particularly relevant because it can help distribute tourism beyond the traditional beach season. Frederick’s hotel investment shows how accommodation and conference infrastructure can create new travel opportunities, while Annapolis continues to benefit from its powerful waterfront and heritage appeal. Maryland is well positioned for sustainable tourism growth as its cities focus on quality, diversity and longer stays.”
Maryland’s expected tourism upturn is being driven by strong visitor demand and targeted destination investment. Ocean City is pursuing sports, meetings and group travel to create additional hotel nights beyond traditional beach holidays. Baltimore is strengthening its urban tourism offer through attractions, accommodation and waterfront development. Frederick is expanding its heritage, outdoor, food and events proposition while planning further tourism growth. The answer is therefore not simply more visitors, but more valuable visitors. Longer stays can increase hotel occupancy and spending across restaurants, attractions and retail. These strategies give Maryland’s cities several routes to capture additional travel demand throughout 2026 and beyond.
Maryland’s travel outlook is becoming increasingly diversified in 2026. Ocean City is targeting sports, meetings, groups and longer stays. Baltimore is building on its urban attractions and growing hospitality infrastructure. Frederick is developing heritage, outdoor and event tourism. Together, these cities show how Maryland is responding to changing traveller behaviour. The state’s next tourism opportunity lies in increasing overnight stays and visitor spending rather than relying only on arrival numbers. Full-year 2026 statewide results are not yet available, so claims of a completed tourism boom would be premature. Current evidence nevertheless shows strong strategic momentum across Maryland’s leading tourism destinations.
Ocean City is among Maryland’s largest individual tourism destinations, reporting approximately eight million visitors annually and maintaining a substantial hotel and condominium accommodation base.
Visitors generated $21.2 billion in spending in 2024, according to the Maryland Office of Tourism Development, while tourism supported approximately 194,000 jobs and generated $2.5 billion in state and local tax revenue. Maryland tourism economic-impact data
The leading overnight source markets are Washington, D.C./Hagerstown, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, with additional demand coming from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, Georgia and other US markets. Maryland’s FY2026 tourism marketing plan
Frederick County recorded 2.1 million visitors and $564 million in tourism-related revenue in 2024, with visitor spending increasing 4.6% year over year. Visit Frederick’s tourism statistics
Overnight visitors have more opportunities to spend on hotels, restaurants, attractions, retail and transport, making room nights an important measure of the economic value created by travel and tourism.
Ocean City launched Discover Ocean City, MD to strengthen its meetings, conventions, sports and group travel business while supporting midweek, shoulder-season and year-round tourism. Ocean City’s official 2026 tourism announcement
The Marriott Downtown Frederick at Carroll Creek is a 204-room hotel and conference centre with more than 26,000 square feet of meeting space, with completion scheduled for 2027. Maryland Governor’s Office hotel announcement
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Wednesday, September 9, 2026
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Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Wednesday, September 9, 2026