The $25.6 billion number includes $15.7 in direct visitor spending, plus indirect effects like wages being spent in local economies.
That boom isn’t lost on Wisconsin politicians, especially Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has frequently hyped up a"record-breaking year" for tourism in posts on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.PolitiFact Wisconsin was interested in these numbers, because there’s no doubt tourism will continue to be a hot topic in Wisconsin in the months ahead.
Then there’s about $4.6 billion in what’s called supply-chain effects, such as needing to purchase more from food wholesalers and utilities. The counties with the lowest economic impact from tourism were Menominee, Florence, Pepin, Forest and Lafayette. Those ranged from $6 million to $29 million in impacts.
Clearly, the tourism industry has been rebounding from COVID-19. The report says that"key indicators point to the normalization of Wisconsin’s visitor activity in 2023."Still, previous reports show that 2023 was a record-setting year for tourism. That economic impact number appears to steadily rise and set new records each year, with the onset of COVID-19 as an exception.