Tourists gather outside the White House on May 29. A record number of visitors came to D.C. last year after a significant drop at the start of the pandemic. D.C. welcomed a record number of visitors last year as tourism rebounded from its sharp pandemic-era drop-off, the city’s marketing arm announced Wednesday.
The city is particularly interested in courting international visitors, said Elliott L. Ferguson II, the president and CEO of Destination DC, since they play an outsize role in bolstering the local economy. According to an earlierby the marketing group, foreigners are typically 7 percent of the city’s visiting population but account for 27 percent of spending. “They stay longer, they spend more and we want them back,” Ferguson said at a news conference Wednesday.