photo by: Shawn Valverde

Downtown Lawrence is pictured in November 2024. The view is of Massachusetts Street, center, looking south.

Visitor spending in Douglas County in 2023 reached its highest level ever recorded, signaling that tourism in the Lawrence area is back above pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent report.

Spending by visitors in the county totaled $296.3 million in 2023, a 6% increase from the previous year, according to a report by Tourism Economics.

The report used a data gathering model that tracked visitor-related spending based on data like sales tax receipts and lodging statistics. It considered visitors as anyone who traveled over 50 miles to the area or stayed in any overnight accommodations.

Allison Calvin, the director of marketing and communications for Explore Lawrence, said the record growth was a continuation of the recovery for the tourism industry since COVID-19 struck in 2020. After visitor spending hit $273 million in 2019, that number plummeted by 30.7% to just $189 million in 2020. Since that low point, spending growth rebounded to $246 million in 2021 and has now topped the pre-pandemic spending numbers.

Calvin said that for 2023, Explore Lawrence was able to implement more strategies in the city’s target markets like Wichita, Chicago, Denver and Dallas. Although locals would not see those efforts, Calvin said that work helped bring more people to visit.

“We’ve seen a great correlation between our marketing efforts and the increase in reach for visitation,” Calvin said.

The report broke down the visitor spending into five categories: food and beverage; transportation; retail; lodging; and recreation. The category that saw the highest jump from 2022 to 2023 was recreation, which had a 14.6% increase in spending by visitors. Calvin said that category included live music shows at the Granada and University of Kansas sporting events.

Of course, with KU football playing games outside of Lawrence this season due to stadium construction, it’s possible that 2024 visitor spending in Douglas County won’t be quite as high without that major draw.

Calvin said the city would not get a full picture of that until next year, but she said Explore Lawrence was hopeful that numbers would remain strong. She thinks the group did a good job marketing watch parties for football games and campaigns for other annual events like Busker Fest that helped still draw people in.

“People just want to be in Lawrence. Whether the game was in Kansas City, Kansas, or Kansas City, Missouri, this is still the atmosphere (where) people wanted to be,” Calvin said.

The study also found the visitor activity directly supported 2,759 jobs, a 4% increase from last year. Calvin said the city is hoping that number continues to grow, especially as the city is hoping to take advantage of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup coming to the Kansas City-area.

As for other impacts from tourism, Calvin noted that the visitor spending in 2023 generated $31.3 million in state and local taxes in Douglas County, a 6.6% increase from the year prior.

“We want (visitors) to come back and continue to love Lawrence like we do,” Calvin said.