Featured Blog: What Tourism Means To Roseville and The Rest of Minnesota

My director of Sales and Marketing Carrie Ford and I attended the Explore MN Tourism (EMT) conference at the Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis this past February.  John Edman, Explore MN Tourism Executive Director, gave us the latest tourism statistics compiled from 2011, which are quite impressive:

• Minnesota hosts 71 million travelers a year which is more than 13 times our state's population.
• Tourism and travel generated $11.9 billion in gross sales and $769 million in state sales tax.
• That’s 17% of all state sales tax revenue – up 5% from 2010
• From 2003 – 2001 state sales tax revenues from leisure and hospitality grew 41% while those from other industries grew just 16%
• The hospitality industry supports 240,000 jobs and represents 11% of private sector employment from entry-level positions to high level managers and business owners.
• Minnesota employs 239,855 in tourism related jobs
• Resulting in a $4 billion payroll which equals 11% of total private sector employment.

I personally can attest to the level of opportunities offered in the field as I have worked in the hospitality industry my entire life. I started off as a cashier at McDonalds and began my hotel career as a maid at the long gone Capp Towers Motel in downtown Saint Paul.

I thought it would be glamorous…but, as a teenager who did not like to clean her own room, you can imagine how I felt about cleaning someone else’s! Plus we are talking more than 30 years ago and either toilet bowl brushes had not yet been invented or Capp Towers did not believe in them. I stuck it out for the summer but when they asked me to return for the next I declined.

I did go to school for hotel management and started a real career at the Radisson Hotel in Saint Paul. It has been bought and sold since then and is now a Crowne Plaza.

The hospitality industry supports all levels of careers and with the sheer number of natural resources and seasons we enjoy; tourism is one of the true growth industries we have.

Right now the industry is banding together to ask the state to look at our current level of tourism funding and invest more in our future. Minnesota’s tourism budget currently ranks 30th in the nation and we are being outspent by Wisconsin, South Dakota, Illinois, Michigan and Montana.

At the conference Gov. Mark Dayton recognized the importance of tourism and included money in his budget proposal to double the amount we spend on marketing tourism in Minnesota.

Hopefully the bill passes and we can increase promotions to grow our marketing and attract new visitors to Minnesota which will generate revenues and jobs!