Houston continues to attract more visitors, setting records in 2024 for number of visitors, air passengers and hotel revenue.
More than 54 million people visited the city last year, 6% more than the estimated 51 million in 2023 and almost 10% over 2019 volume, according to figures analyzed by Houston First, the city’s tourism bureau. Final figures will be released this spring.
“Last year’s record visitor numbers demonstrate Houston is heading in the right direction,” Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement issued by Houston First. “These efforts to promote Houston and attract conventions and tourists benefit all Houstonians by generating spending and commerce, which ultimately creates jobs in our community.”
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The increase of visitors translated to record passenger volume at the region’s two major airports. More than 63 million people traveled through Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports last year, nealry 5% more than a year earlier. The number of passengers at Bush rose 4.9%, while 5.1% more traveled through Hobby.
Meanwhile, more than 25 million hotel room nights were booked last year, 8.2% more than in 2023, pushing the region’s occupancy rate higher by 7.7%. That translated to a 15.5% increase in overall hotel revenue, to $3 billion, breaking a record set in 2023.
I’m old enough to remember some cringey efforts to market Houston as a tourist destination, several of which were spearheaded by former First Lady Elyse Lanier. The 90s were quite the ride, I’ll tell you. I’d say Houston is a better place to visit now than it was thirty years ago just because it’s a much better place to eat out. No one lacks for good restaurant recommendations these days. I bring this up in part because I do think it matters, and also because according to the travel and tourism data sheet included in the story, the single biggest reason in both 2022 and 2023 for people to come to Houston was “visit friends/relatives”. Maybe that’s how we should have been marketing ourselves all along.
Well said.
re: “That translated to a 15.5% increase in overall hotel revenue, to $3 billion, breaking a record set in 2023.”
A bit of a misleading statistical information, that is. The number I’d be interested in would how many local folks are employed at local hotels this year vs. last, and what was said employee’s ‘overall hotel revenue’ ? It’s highly unlikely the majority of that $3B figure, while spent in HTX, stayed in HTX.
My parents used to joke that the first native Houstonians they knew were my sister and me, and they had been here for over a decade by the time I was born (they met at Rice in the late 60s). My wife moved here for work and most of my friends are from elsewhere.
Houston is very much a place that people move to (as I believe you have some experience with) and not usually for fun reasons (school and work being the main ones, rather than some kind of “scene”), so it doesn’t surprise me that the main reason people come here is to visit family and friends (the ones who moved away). Having those amenities definitely makes it an easier sell for that (and easier to keep those of us who are here). I know that my in-laws would never visit Houston for fun if their daughter didn’t live here. I definitely remember rolling my eyes, even as a kid, at the “Houston’s Hot” billboards of the 90s and all of the lists of “things to do in Houston” with half of them being in Galveston, so it’s definitely better, but I don’t see it really ever being up with New Orleans, Las Vegas, or Miami in terms of tourist destinations.