With the ninth year in a row of record-breaking numbers, overall tourism to D.C. isn’t slowing down—though the number of international visitors, particularly those from China, did fall last year.
In total, 23.8 million people visited the District in 2018, an increase of one million visitors over the year before, according to Destination D.C., the city’s official marketing organization. About 21.9 million were domestic visitors, as previously reported, while 1.9 million were overseas tourists.
In total, overseas tourism to the city fell by 5.3 percent from the year prior, with a significant decrease—25 percent—of Chinese visitors.
Amid trade tensions, it appears that fewer visitors are coming to both the nation’s capital and the country as a whole.
“The data shows that Chinese visitation is down to the U.S. overall, especially when it comes to vacation and first-time visitors, which D.C. tends to see a bigger share of,” Destination DC president and CEO Elliott Ferguson said in a news release.
Still, the country continues to hold the top spot as the largest overseas market in D.C.’s tourism industry (at 226,000 visitors last year). Mayor Muriel Bowser has made courting Chinese visitors a priority, and Destination DC even has an initiative that certifies hotels and other businesses as friendly for Chinese tourists.
The rest of the top ten markets for visitors to the District is rounded out by the United Kingdom, India, Germany, Brazil, Australia, France, South Korea, Italy, and Spain.
Attracting international visitors is crucial because they account for 27 percent of spending, despite being a much smaller percentage of the total number of annual tourists, according to the marketing organization.
Overall, visitors to the city spent a record of $7.8 billion dollars, which accounted for $851 million in local taxes, according to Destination DC. “Our goal as an economic development organization is to drive visitation and create revenue for the District, so we’re thrilled to see the results of an additional 1 million visitors last year,” Ferguson said.
Previously:
With 22 Million (!) Visitors, D.C. Breaks Tourism Record For Ninth Year In A Row
An Inside Look At The Effort To Lure Chinese Tourists To D.C.
