$5.65B in tourism revenue in 2015 sets a Maine record
Travel packages with a focus on outdoor recreation helped drive a 13% gain in Maine’s tourism last year, tourism officials said Tuesday.
Recreation was singled-out as having the greatest increase in direct tourism spending, making a jump from $447.5 million in 2014 to $505.7 million in 2015, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Overall, tourists spent a record $5.65 billion last year. The findings were released at the Maine Office of Tourism’s annual conference, held at Sunday River Resort.
Baby boomers helped drive the numbers. Steve Jermanok, a business owner and travel writer who led a session on adventure travel at the conference, said that baby boomers looking for travel packages with a focus on outdoor recreation activities like hiking and water-sports are a huge draw for tourism in Maine.
“They want to get out there and stay healthier longer,” Jermanok said. “You have an easy sell, to be honest.”
Another big tourism demographic that Maine is hoping to capture is a group of visitors known as “genuine originals.” These higher-than-average-household-income earners, making roughly $131,000, not only spend more during their visits but look for more “authentic” vacation experiences and adventurous outdoor recreation.
Total visitation last year rose 2.9%, from 32.9 million visits in 2014 to 33.9 million last year. The rise in visitation also brought an increase in lodging sales, generating $1.65 billion last year, up from $1.51 billion.
One noticeable drop came from spending by Canadian tourists, which fell from $1.1 billion in 2014 to $856 million in 2015 — corresponding to the decline from 4.2 million visits in 2014 to 4.1 million visits in 2015, according to the Press Herald.
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