For the ninth year in a row, more tourists have visited Washington D.C. than ever before. The city attracted 21.9 million domestic visitors in 2018, according to Destination D.C., the city’s official tourism and marketing office. That’s over one million more people than last year.

Elliot L. Ferguson II, the office’s president and CEO, partly attributes the continuous influx of tourists to the organization’s ‘Discover the Real DC’ campaign. The campaign highlights aspects of D.C., like nightlife and arts and culture, that visitors might not readily associate with the city’s political reputation.

The campaign follows a slew of others in recent years designed to make the city more appealing to visitors and locals alike (see: DC Cool, #WeGotThis and DC-specific emojis).

Attracting more visitors also means attracting more dollars. The office says visitors’ spending last year broke records. They spent $7.8 billion, which generated $851 million in local taxes.

Destination DC announced the numbers Tuesday at Travel Rally, an event that celebrates the tourism industry during National Travel and Tourism Week.

The announcement comes amid several developments that the office hopes will continue to attract even more visitors in the coming year. The International Spy Museum will reopen on May 12 at L’Enfant Plaza, the Washington Monument will reopen in August, and the National Children’s Museum at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center will open on Nov. 1.

The office doesn’t know exactly how my tourists visited the city from other countries yet. They expect to release those numbers in August.

Mayowa Aina is a reporter in the WAMU newsroom. This story first appeared on WAMU.