JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Mississippi’s tourism industry is taking small steps back to recovery. However, inflation landed at the same time as a typically busy season.
Tourism doesn’t always mean out-of-state, and Visit Mississippi has noticed a lot more staycationers.
“When people say, ‘You know, I’m taking, we’re taking our summer vacation, we’re going where we want to go before the kids go back to school. We’re still planning our golf vacation, and we’re still going to our resorts and our casinos,’” explained Visit Mississippi Director of Tourism Craig Ray. “But maybe we’re just going to keep it here Mississippi more this year, and maybe not travel as long but spend and do what we want to do. So, you’re just seeing the traveler adjust their schedule a bit and their territory where they feel comfortable traveling.”
The Mississippi Tourism Association notes that nationally a record number of travelers say the costs are impacting their decisions, but only 7% are going so far as canceling.
“If you look back at 2019 numbers, our travel spending has been up about 5% year to date over that,” said Danielle Morgan, Executive Director of Mississippi Tourism Association of April numbers. “We have seen a little dip as we talked about gas prices, and inflation are starting to put the squeeze a little bit. But fortunately, people are still planning to travel.”
A couple of areas that haven’t rebounded as quickly are business and international travel. Maybe you don’t think of foreigners flocking to the Magnolia State. But they typically pour in a lot of money into the state’s economy and did so at a record pace in 2019.
“When you’re taking 185,000 people out of your market, staying here for one to two weeks at a time and spending almost $200 million when they’re completely out of your market. We missed that,” added Craig Ray.
Meanwhile, numbers for outdoor travel outdoor like golfing, hiking, fishing, and camping stayed strong even through the pandemic.
“We look forward to just continuing on that path to recovery,” noted Morgan. “And hopefully, no more whammies.”
Visit Mississippi expects that with the latest set of travel restrictions that were lifted, international travel could rebound by next spring.
Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
Copyright 2022 WLBT. All rights reserved.
