Michigan tourism soars

Break out the fudge and shoot off some fireworks, Michigan’s tourism industry is officially, positively, emphatically on the rebound.

After 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.