Irene Impact Update 

October MRA Held Steady: Statewide, Vermont’s hospitality industry held its ground during October, despite the travel obstacles posed by damage from Tropical Storm Irene. The preliminary report of Meals Rooms and Alcohol(MRA) taxable receipts during October 2012, show statewide rooms receipts were up a modest 0.6 percent. This contrasts with the actual 7.5 percent increase of room receipts during September. Likewise, meals receipts were up just 0.7 percent over October 2010. Clearly, the October response to the storm's damage was sobering: alcohol sales were down slightly, - 1.9 percent. Read More.

September Strong Statewide: Although the communities and resort areas that took the brunt of
the flash flood also took the brunt of business loss, the preliminary report on Meals, Rooms and
Alcohol (MRA) Taxable Receipts indicate that statewide rooms sales were up 7.5 percent. Read More.

More Details – EPR Dashboard on 3rd Quarter Impacts

While the immediacy of Tropical Storm Irene significantly impacted the Labor Day Weekend visitor counts and those through most of September, the combination of advertising and media relations efforts to assure the public that “Vermont is Open!” was certainly effective in restoring visitor counts at these facilities to levels comparable to 2010. Click here for a table comparing visitor counts at key welcome and information centers 2011 vs. 2010.

With the largest response to date, the preliminary results of the 2010 Lodging survey are in! We had 200 usable responses, which was a 27 percent increase over the previous high number of respondents. Thanks to all who participated. The information you provided will be a key component to our ongoing strategy surrounding the critical aspects of promoting Vermont as a world-class destination.

View the 2010 prelimary results. (PDF)

2009 Benchmark on the Impact of Visitor Spending

It wasn't the best of years, but Vermont weathered the Great Recession in better shape than many tourism destinations. The 2009 Benchmark Executive Summary analyzes the impact of the 11.4 percent decline in visitor spending that year, but also reflects the resilience of Vermont's hospitality and recreation industry through the most difficult recession in six decades.

Some highlights from the new study include, in 2009...

• Visitors made an estimated 13.7 million person trips to Vermont for leisure, business or personal travel.
  
• Direct spending by visitors for goods and services totaled $1.424 billion.
• Visitor spending supports an estimated 33,530 jobs for Vermonters (approximately 11.5% of all jobs).

These numbers and much more are available on our 2009 Fact Sheet (PDF).

In 2010, Vermont’s Chief Marketing Officer, with the Department of Tourism and Marketing and the Vermont Ski Area Association completed a research project to study the perceptions of Vermont and how these perceptions affect decision making for choosing a vacation destination.

The goal of this research is to better understand Vermont’s unique strengths and areas of opportunity to enable the state and Vermont businesses to fully leverage Vermont’s brand and increase market share. Download the full PDF report here.

You can also download the presentation, Leveraging the Vermont Brand, based on the research.

2007 Tourism Economic Impact Study
An updated benchmark study on the economic impact of visitor expenditures on the Vermont economy for 2007 is now available. The in-depth study looks at everything from who our visitors are, to their average length of stay, their spending habits, overnight lodging data, tourism industry employment and state tax revenues. It is available as a PDF document.

The report, compiled by by Economic & Policy Resources, Inc. (EPR), presents the demographics, spending and travel patterns of a select group of Vermont's domestic visitors, specifically those who have requested a planning packet or have subscribed to our online newsletter. It is based on a survey of 1,300 people who visited Vermont during 2006.