It was another successful tourism season in the Black Hills. In turn, Thursday marked the 84th annual regional tourism conference to debrief business owners and tourism officials.
The downtown Rapid City convention center hosted business owners, lobbyists and advocates as they celebrated another year of visitors.
Michelle Thomson is president of the Black Hills and Badlands Tourism Association.
“The year turned out to be pretty good actually,” Thomson said. “Visitor expenditures were up, our visitation was about flat but still a very, very good number. We’re very pleased with how 2024 has turned out.”
However, navigating all those visitors creates a new challenge for local leaders – sustainability.
“We understand that this amazing resource we have is why people come here, we just want to make sure we have the right people coming here and that we spread them out as much as we can throughout the year and to the different attractions and communities throughout the area,” Thomson said. “Most people might think of Mount Rushmore, but when they come here we want to make sure they see everything else there is to do here too – and maybe not come in July, but come in October instead.”
And who exactly is that target demographic?
“We have a really varied market,” Thomson said. “The family market is very, very strong for us, we have a lot of family attractions. Outdoor recreation has gotten to be an incredible draw for us, so we’ve gotten a lot of couples traveling together, whether they’re younger couples or older couples. Then of course the baby boomer age, we have a quite a lot of visitors that come in from that.”
The event also featured updates from the state Retailors Association, Game Fish and Parks, and Department of Transportation.
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