The Most Visited U.S. States Spent Less to Market to Travelers Last Year
Skift Take
For some states coming in under budget is good news and for others the smaller spending signifies problems that marketing organizations are having. For now, most provisional tourism budgets increased for fiscal year 2016 and we'll soon see what impact that's had on travelers.
Many U.S. states' tourism budgets are larger than they've ever been, yet some major destination marketing organizations and other tourism stakeholders spent less than their original budgets to market to travelers.
Tourism budgets have grown each year since the end of the recession during the 2009 to 2010 fiscal year, and the average state tourism budget amount hit a new record high in fiscal year 2016 at about $20.1 million, according to data from the U.S. Travel Association. The average amount that states actually spent increased 8.6 percent year-over-year to $18.8 million. But the most visited states, such as California, New York and Hawaii spent less than their provisional budgets for the 2015 fiscal year.
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That's only a blip for California. It approved an annual budget of more than $100 million in 2015 and U.S. Travel's data show Visit California's provisional budget for the 2016 fiscal
