It was another record year for tourism in Manitowoc County.
An announcement from Visit Manitowoc says the county generated $226 million in economic impact, which well surpassed another record-breaking year when $216 million was generated from 2022.
Visit Manitowoc Director Courtney Hansen says the $226 million raised shows that the tourism industry in Manitowoc is thriving and continues to grow.
“At this point, we have far surpassed our pre-COVID pandemic tourism economic impact numbers and at this point is showing clearly that what we’re doing here in Manitowoc to grow our tourism assets is working,” Hansen stated.
Hansen continues, saying people are coming to Manitowoc County for outdoor recreation, which the city has been focusing on since the COVID-19 pandemic.
But even with one of the biggest attractions being the S.S Badger, which had to cut its season short last year because of mechanical problems, there’s been a lot of success drawing people here because of how good the entire tourism product the Clipper City puts out anyway.
“Last year, everyone was very worried about what our tourism numbers would look like for the end of July, August, September, October because we didn’t have the Badger,” she described. “And we really did not see that dip that some people were worried about, and this data really shows that, hey!, we had an incredible year in 2023 without one of our biggest attractions for a few months.”
Not only were the people coming, but 1,723 full—and part-time jobs across the various sectors of the industry helped keep tourism thriving in the county.
Hansen also explains how to bring a fresh perspective to the tourism sector by bringing into the city of Manitowoc and rebuilding websites and social pages from scratch.
“We’re really excited to see the fruits of that labor and that it’s certainly has been shifting the tourism narrative, making people really realize not only regionally, statewide and across the country, that Manitowoc is a can’t-miss destination,” she exclaimed.
$14.3 million was also generated in local and state tax revenue through tourism in Manitowoc County.
About 113 million people made the trip to the county, which is also 2 million more than last year.
