CLEVELAND, Ohio – Greater Cleveland welcomed 18.6 million visitors in 2024, up 1.5% from a year ago but still below its pre-pandemic high.
Those visitors spent a whopping $6.9 billion on their trips – up 4% over a year ago and a new record.
“Travel and tourism is a powerful growth engine for Cleveland, driving billions of dollars in local impact and supporting tens of thousands of jobs and families,” said David Gilbert, president and CEO of Destination Cleveland, which released its 2024 visitor report early Tuesday.
The increase in visitation was buoyed by a rebound in business travel, up 7% over 2023, according to the tourism organization.
Visitors who are traveling on business — including convention and meeting attendees — are more likely to spend the night and therefore typically spend more, Gilbert said.
Business travelers are also more likely to be first-time visitors to Cleveland, a group that’s important to expand, Gilbert added. “People who experience Cleveland are far more open to visiting again, and ultimately living here and investing here,” he said.
The increase in visitation to Cleveland in 2024 roughly mirrors the increase in visitors across Ohio, which welcomed a record 242 million visitors last year, up from 238 million in 2023, according to the Ohio Department of Development.
Despite the increase, tourism to Cleveland continues to lag behind the record number of visitors set six years ago.
Cuyahoga County welcomed 19.6 million visitors in 2019, which is also when Destination Cleveland set a goal of attracting 20 million visitors by 2020. Then the pandemic hit, and travel to Cleveland — and across the globe — plummeted.
Since then, some destinations — including national parks and other outdoor-focused spots — have seen a surge in visitation.
Other destinations, including large international cities, haven’t seen similar growth.
New York City, for example, is expecting a drop in visitation this year, thanks in part to a large decline in international visitors.
Travel research firm Tourism Economics has projected an 8.2% drop in international arrivals in 2025, due in part to new tariffs and other economic factors, as well as concerns about changes in customs enforcement and immigration policy in the United States.
Cleveland doesn’t track the number of international visitors, but Gilbert said the city is likely experiencing a decrease in Canadian tourists.
“However, we don’t expect and aren’t seeing that it will have any major, significant effect,” he said.
The number of visitors the region draws is important because one in 14 jobs in Cuyahoga County is related to the tourism economy, including more than 20,000 workers in the food and beverage industry.
Visitors also pay taxes, generating $1.6 billion in tax revenue in 2024. According to Destination Cleveland, that equates to a tax savings of about $1,460 per county household.
Gilbert also lamented the loss of potential economic impact from the influential International Studies Association, a large organization of scholars from more than 80 countries, which said last month that it was removing Cleveland from consideration for future conventions, citing Ohio legislation it believes undermines LGBTQ rights and targets immigrants.
“That’s the first we’ve seen of something like this,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be the last.”
He added, “We live in an increasingly divided world. There are effects of things that we’re going to see that we’ve never seen before. It’s sad.”
By the numbers: Cleveland’s tourism economy
Total visitors: 18.6 million in 2024
Day visitors: 58%
Overnight visitors: 42%
Economic impact: $6.9 billion in direct sales, $11.4 billion in indirect and induced spending
Tourism jobs: 70,200
Previous years:
2023: 18.3 million
2022: 17.9 million
2021: 16.1 million
2020: 13.8 million
2019: 19.6 million
2018: 19.2 million
2017: 18.5 million
2016: 18 million
2015: 17.6 million