GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Tourism in the greater Grand Rapids area reached record highs in 2022.
According to Experience Grand Rapids, individual meetings, sporting events and group tours brought more than 440,000 people to Kent County last year.
Hotels saw a big boost in sales with more than 2.1 million rooms sold, which is up nearly 20% from 2021.
That came out to nearly $250 million in revenue, nearly double last year's numbers.
“After two very rough years, group business has made a strong comeback in Kent County,” said EXGR President & CEO, Doug Small. “That, combined with robust leisure travel in 2022, drove huge increases in hotel room sales and revenues over 2021 and pushed us past 2019’s pre-pandemic record numbers. That’s two full years ahead of industry forecasts that predicted we wouldn’t see new sales highs until 2024.”
These figures are well above pre-pandemic levels and also much higher than experts were expecting.
