St. Cloud Summer Tourism Back To Pre-Pandemic Levels

ST. CLOUD -- It was a strong summer travel season for local tourism in St. Cloud.

Rachel Thompson is the Executive Director of Visit Greater St. Cloud. She says June was the first time St. Cloud tourism reached pre-pandemic levels.

When we talk about dollars spent, visitor to resident ratio, we've got 24% of the market share coming from travelers to our region. So that's a large piece of that pie and those are the new dollars coming into our local economy.

Thompson says according to their data a majority of visitors coming to St. Cloud are from Minneapolis, Duluth, North and South Dakota and Nebraska.

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She says not only can they see who is coming to St. Cloud, but what spots they are likely to visit.

Some of the top place in the area people have been going to are St. Cloud State University, House of Pizza West, Shooters, St. Cloud Rox, River's Edge Convention Center, Bravo Burrito, Holiday Inn, Airmaxx and Lake George.

She says this data help's them continue to target the markets who are already visiting St. Cloud and identifying which markets they should be attracting to central Minnesota.

Thompson says coming up in the near future, St. Cloud will host the Minnesota Senior Games in both 2023 and 2024. She says they also have some bids in to host some other big events scheduled for 2025.