If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on TwitterAfter three down years, travel and tourism spending in the state rose 14% last year to $17.2 billion, up from $15.1 billion in 2009 — the biggest one-year jump in Michigan history, according to the latest annual national survey by D.K. Shifflet & Associates of McLean, Va.
Especially notable was a 21% spike in spending by out-of-state leisure visitors, quite likely linked to the cumulative impact of the state’s first-ever national cable TV buys of advertising time in 2009 and 2010 for the Pure Michigan campaign.
“We always believed we had a national quality product to sell, but we never had the budget before,” said George Zimmermann, vice president of Travel Michigan, the tourism arm of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.