2024 State of the Visitor Industry: Year-End Report

COLUMBUS, Ohio—The 2024 State of the Visitor Industry: Year-End Report made available today by Experience Columbus and the Greater Columbus Sports Commission shows a record-breaking year for the travel economy with the launch of a new brand campaign—yes, Columbus—that celebrates the city’s national and international accolades and several major sporting events that drew global attention.  

In its initial year, the yes, Columbus campaign resulted in more than 200 million impressions throughout the year. Data shows that of those who saw Experience Columbus advertisements, there was a 49% arrival lift during the summer, and visitors stayed 39% longer than those who did not see the ads. Those results, along with nearly 12 million views on Experience Columbus’ website and 15 million video views across its social media channels, indicate that awareness of Columbus as a must-visit destination is growing. 

“We have so much to celebrate as a community as we look back on 2024,” said Experience Columbus President and CEO Brian Ross, ECI. “As the primary marketing engine for Columbus, the work our team does every day continues to impact our community by improving quality of life for residents, having a significant impact on economic and human development and improving the image and brand awareness for Central Ohio, which research shows has a direct impact on encouraging people to move here, start a business here, attend college here and invest in Central Ohio.”  

From Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2024, Columbus hosted a total of 435 conventions, trade shows and sporting events. The African Methodist Episcopal Church’s 52nd Quadrennial Session of the General Conference, which was hosted in August, became the largest convention held in the city's history, setting unprecedented records in both direct visitor spending and reserved room nights with 15,000 attendees filling 22,000 hotel rooms and having an estimated $15M in direct visitor spend. The other top two events for Experience Columbus were the Public Library Association’s annual conference in April that was attended by 8,700 people and represented 14,794 total rooms and $10.4M in direct visitor spending, and AmericanHort’s Cultivate in July, which was attended by 10,000 people, filled 12,672 total rooms and represented $7.6M in direct visitor spending. 

Sports was a major theme of 2024 with events such as the U.S. Figure Skating Championships held at Nationwide Arena in January. With 60,000 tickets sold, the event saw the highest attendance for a championship since 2018, which was an Olympic year, and brought in $8 million in direct visitor spending. In the spring, Columbus welcomed three NCAA Championships: Fencing, Men’s Gymnastics and Women’s DIII Basketball, and visits from the Savannah Bananas, U.S. Women’s National Team (soccer) and USA Volleyball. Each event at a different facility showed off our city’s top venues and passion for all sports. The Summer of Soccer featured visits from global soccer powerhouses Manchester City and Chelsea, a visit from another Premier League team, Aston Villa, as well as the MLS All-Star Game. Twenty-thousand fans attended the All-Star Game, which brought in $20 million in direct visitor spending. The year ended with the College Football Playoff First Round as the Buckeyes welcomed the Tennessee Volunteers to start their road to a championship.  

From Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2024, the STR report, which provides premium data benchmarking, analytics, and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry, shows that all key performance metrics increased year over year and that Columbus had the largest year over year increase in overall room demand.  

*RevPAR is a hotel industry performance metric, which is calculated by multiplying a hotel’s ADR by its occupancy rate. 

Bed tax collections from Jan. 1, 2024 through Dec. 31, 2024 totaled $59,497,998, up 8% over the same period in 2023, according to reports from the Office of City of Columbus Auditor Megan Kilgore.  

Looking ahead, Experience Columbus and the Greater Columbus Sports Commission booked 463 conventions, meetings, trade shows and sporting events for future years and conducted 77 site visits for meeting and event professionals representing a total of 319,348 room nights in future business. One of the biggest announcements of the year came in August when Experience Columbus announced it will once again host the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Annual Meeting & Exposition in 2030.

“2024 was the biggest year in the history of the Greater Columbus Sports Commission,” said Greater Columbus Sports Commission CEO and President Linda Logan. “Our city welcomed the largest number of sporting events—97—generating the largest direct visitor spending—$182 million—in any year since our founding in 2002. Our owned events, which include Community Youth Camp and Community Cup, continued to flourish with record participation in Community Cup. We also welcomed more than 80 kids to Camp—more than 90% on scholarship—and 250 kids to our new Youth Sports Clinics.” 

 Kicking off the year, Experience Columbus released its 25 Reasons to Visit blog forecasting the most anticipated moments of the year. On the heels of being named one of the best food cities in the U.S. by Condé Nast Traveler's 2024 Readers' Choice Awards, Columbus earned three James Beard Foundation® nominations in January as part of the prestigious 2025 Restaurant and Chef Awards. The nominations followed a citywide campaign led by Experience Columbus in the fall of 2024 to get Columbus’ talented chefs, restaurants and bars recognized. Avishar Barua, chef/owner of Agni and Joya's, was named a semifinalist in the Best Chef: Great Lakes category. Law Bird landed in the Outstanding Bar category, and Dan the Baker is a semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery. 

To view past Experience Columbus and Greater Columbus Sports Commission quarterly reports, visit ExperienceColumbus.com/Reports.  

About Experience Columbus  
Experience Columbus is the destination marketing organization for the Columbus region dedicated to growing visitor spending and enhancing the visitor experience. Annually, visitors make 51.2 million trips to Greater Columbus for conventions, trade shows, sporting events and leisure visits, spending $8.2 billion and supporting more than 82,500 jobs—one in every 13 jobs in Franklin County. For more information, visit ExperienceColumbus.com.  
 
About the Greater Columbus Sports Commission 
The Greater Columbus Sports Commission’s mission is to rally Columbus to compete and win sporting events, providing a singular athlete and fan experience and positively impacting image, economy and lifestyle. Since 2002, the Greater Columbus Sports Commission has hosted more than 1,250 sporting events, generating an estimated $1.7 billion in direct visitor spending. For more information, visit ColumbusSports.org. 

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Media Contacts:  
Leah Berger, APR, ECI: lberger@experiencecolumbus.com | 614-222-6145 
Cameron Tirado, ECI: ctirado@experiencecolumbus.com | 614-222-6146