PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A recent report showed a record amount of people visiting Portland since the pandemic.
Travel Portland keeps track of hotel stays and tourism behavior.
In their latest report presented to the city council, Portland is on track to reach pre-pandemic levels of hotel bookings.
Walk around in the Central City and it’s not hard to find lots of tourists and locals spending money.
According to Travel Portland, hotel and Airbnb bookings have gone up since 2020.
“This points to a rebound and progress. Great news for Portland and our hotel partners,” Jeff Miller, President/CEO of Travel Portland said.
He pointed to data that shows 354,140 hotel rooms were sold in August, the highest since 2019 when there were 409,851 rooms sold.
However, the city still has some catching up to do. Many events and conventions canceled during the pandemic have not been rebooked and the next few years are not looking too promising.
“Due to circumstances here in Portland at the time, all those cancellations, what they didn’t do is book future dates in ’25 and ’26,” said James Jessie, Chief Financial Officer for Travel Portland.
Consumer research found around 40% of visitors think Portland is a welcoming destination, and only 33% think the city is safe, which is far below the roughly 50% in early 2020.
The good news is that 64% said they would visit Portland again, however, that is still down from the 84% in 2020 who said they would visit again.
Travel Portland said they booked more than 300,000 room nights in future convention businesses, making the ’23-‘24 fiscal year their second-best ever.
“What we saw in June, July, and August is aharbinger of things to come,” Miller added.
Travel Portland’s solution to draw more tourism is to continue promoting the city across the globe.
More than a dozen magazines and media outlets have listed Portland as a top destination.
Conde Nast called Portland one of the top ten “coolest temperature” destinations in the world.
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