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Tennessee Tourism Sets New Record

Tourism in Tennessee hit a record $30.6 billion in direct visitor spending last year, according to new data from Tourism Economics and the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development (TDTD). 

The figure is up 6.2 percent since 2022. The new record follows two consecutive years of double-digit growth. Overall, tourism in Tennessee has grown 125 percent over 2019 pre-pandemic levels. 

“Tennessee tourism is soaring, leading to benefits to Tennesseans,” said Mark Ezell, commissioner of the TDTD. “Thanks to our destination marketing organizations across the state, in addition to our leisure and hospitality businesses in this amazing accomplishment.”

Total visitors to Tennessee topped 144 million last year. That is up 3 million people since 2022. This was pushed by growth in more day visits to the state.

Here are some other highlights from the new data: 

• Tennessee tourism generated $30.6 billion in direct visitor spending last year, a 25 percent increase over two years.

• Tennessee visitors spent $84 million each day in 2023.

• Tourist spending generated $3.2 billion in direct state and local tax revenues in 2023. 

• Without tourism, each Tennessee household would have to pay an additional $1,160 in taxes each year.

• The state of Tennessee collected $1.9 billion in tax revenues.

• City and county governments collected $1.25 billion in tax revenues.

• Visitor spending sustained 191,522 direct jobs, one of every 24 jobs in the state.

• Employment supported by visitor activity increased 3 percent in 2023, rebounding to 98 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

• Domestic visitor spending is 127 percent recovered to pre-pandemic (2019) levels.

• International visitor spending is 81.6 percent recovered to pre-pandemic (2019) levels.

“When tourism grows, Tennessee reaps the benefit with increased sales tax revenue,” said Gov. Bill Lee. “Tourism boosts local economies, supports businesses and jobs, funds public services, and creates a better quality of life for all Tennesseans. We welcome visitors from around the world to experience Tennessee’s music, scenic outdoor beauty, culture, and food from Mountain City to Memphis.”

More data — including county-level data — will be released next month, the TDT said. 

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News News Blog News Feature

Report: Tourism Spending Rose Above $4B Here Last Year

Tourism topped a record-breaking $4 billion in spending in Shelby County last year, up from 2021, and enough to rank second in spending among Tennessee’s 95 counties. 

These are the finalized figures from U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics and released recently by the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development (TDTD). The report shows spending here rose 16 percent from 2021’s spend of $3.4 billion to just over $4 billion. The new figure showed growth over 2019’s pre-pandemic activity when tourists spent more than $3.7 billion in Shelby County. 

Credit: State of Tennessee

Visitor spending in Shelby County brought more than $391.8 million to state and local tax coffers. State officials said without this tourism money, each Shelby County household would pay $1,105 more in state and local taxes. Tourism spending also supported 27,745 jobs here. 

What did visitors buy here? Food and beverage topped the list with more than $1.3 billion spent. Transportation ($956.7 million), accommodations ($669.5 million), recreation ($566.1 million), and retail ($490.6 million) rounded out the top five spending categories. 

Credit: State of Tennessee

About 141 million people visited Tennessee last year and spent around $29 billion, a figure higher than the preliminary report issued earlier this year.    

   “Tennessee is thriving as tourism is soaring,” said Mark Ezell, TDTD Commissioner. “Our industry’s hard work is paying off with record levels of visitor spending and significantly outpacing inflation.” 

Shelby County ranked second to Davidson County in spending last year. Nashville saw tourist spending rise 35 percent from 2021 to a record $9.9 billion.   

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News News Blog News Feature

Tennessee Tourism Sees Record-Breaking 2022

Tennessee travel spending hit a record-breaking $27.5 billion in 2022, state leaders announced recently. 

The feat is according to preliminary data released by U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics. The new data put Tennessee in the top 25 states for travel spending. Tennessee also rose from 14th place in 2020 to 11th in the ranking for 2021 and 2022. 

U.S. Travel and Tourism Economics

“Tennessee’s tourism, leisure, and hospitality industry is leading the nation, and we are grateful to our hardworking industry for making these historic new milestones possible,” said Tennessee Department of Tourist Development Commissioner Mark Ezell. “Visitors come for our incredible scenic beauty, dining, and world-class attractions, and keep coming back for our unmatched hospitality. There’s nowhere better to live, work, and play than Tennessee.”

The leisure and hospitality industry employs more than 352,000 Tennesseans. Tourism is the state’s second-largest industry and contributed $1.8 billion to the state coffers last year. 

Countywide data on tourism is due from the company in August. However, the firm’s latest data for the Memphis area said visitors spent $2.6 billion here in 2019. 

A Memphis Tourism and Greater Memphis Chamber report released in August 2022 said tourism jobs in Memphis had returned to pre-pandemic levels and that the industry had made a “full recovery.” That report said tourists spent $3.4 billion here in 2021. 

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News News Blog

Q1-2022 Tourism Numbers Point to Rebound

It looks like out-of-towners just can’t get enough of Beale Street and barbecue this year. A recent report by Memphis Tourism shows that tourism numbers aren’t just thriving in the first quarter of 2022, but in some cases are up from 2019 pre-pandemic highs.

According to Memphis Tourism, Q1 of this year has seen more than 900,000 hotel room nights sold to visitors, which outperforms quarterly 2019 demand trends by 2.5 percent within the city limits. That figure is also 19.8 percent more rooms sold, year-over-year, in comparison to 2021.

“The resilience of our local hospitality industry has kept our tourism economy moving in the most challenging of times and we are seeing a sustained rebound,” said Kevin Kane, president and CEO of Memphis Tourism. “The diversity of attractions and activities, along with the drivability and affordability of the Memphis destination have truly given us momentum, putting us in a strong position, often ahead of the national average on hotel occupancy.”

Broadening to the whole of Shelby County, hotels are only one percentage point behind 2019 demand levels for Q1-2022. But that’s a 20.2 percent increase in the same time frame from 2021.

“As an organization dedicated to encouraging travel, the pandemic presented unique challenges in promoting Memphis as a leisure travel and meetings destination,” said Regena Bearden, chief marketing officer for Memphis Tourism. “Our message to visitors was about their personal level of comfort. We never went dark on our marketing efforts and our ‘When You’re Ready to Rock, We’ll be Ready to Roll’ campaign kept us on the radar of travelers. That really set the tone for our destination and as restrictions eased, we started to see hotel occupancy rise and that has continued through Q1 of 2022.”

Memphis Tourism made the announcement in concurrence with National Travel and Tourism Week, an annual celebration of contributions of the U.S. travel industry. As part of the celebrations, the Renasant Convention Center will host TravelCon, a three-day conference from April 29 to May 1, which is set to bring 50+ speakers, 40 sponsors, and 600 attendees to Memphis.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Same City, New Eyes

To anyone who may have been driving around Memphis last weekend, please accept my sincere apology. I was playing tour guide to my aunt and uncle, who were visiting from North Carolina, and, being somewhat distracted, I made what my sister called some “interesting” driving decisions. So if you saw someone still stopped at a green light, pointing out a particular piece of architecture or a local landmark, that was probably me. I hope I didn’t make you late for an appointment.

Besides being absolutely roasted for my inability to be a somewhat competent distracted driver, the day was a delight. My aunt is from Memphis and my uncle was stationed here when he was in the Army many years ago, so they’re not totally new to the city, but it still felt like a chance to see my hometown with new eyes.

Before I delve into our itinerary, know that I know we barely scratched the surface of any meaningful Memphis to-do list. But I tried to cater to everyone’s personal interests as much as possible.

First, we went to Crosstown Concourse, which my aunt pointed out has been much transformed since its time as a Sears building. Indeed.

We took in the last day of photographer Jamie Harmon’s “Quarantine Portrait” exhibition, and I was struck again by the power of so many faces seen through so many windows and screen doors. Though I had seen many of the portraits before — even written about Harmon’s work while it was still in progress — seeing them all collected was another experience entirely. Though I don’t truly believe we’re fully out of the Covid woods just yet, it brought home how much has changed in the past two years. Often, perhaps as a side effect of my profession, I tend to focus on the seemingly negative changes — the loss of trust, the fragmentation of communities — but I was forced to confront the many ways things are better than they were in April 2020. It was a catharsis to revisit that time from the safety of an art gallery, and with loved ones in the same room. That is a blessing I must endeavor not to take for granted.

While at Crosstown, we stopped at the little reading area, where my nephew enjoyed finding books about dinosaurs. It’s a place I’ve walked past many times but hadn’t taken the time to appreciate. How many such spots must there be in town?

Next, we made our way to Broad Avenue, to give the out-of-towners a chance to peruse some arty knick-knacks and to reward my nephew with some ice cream after his patience with the exhibition. He’s 4 years old, so his tolerance for the gravity of any situation is tenuous at best. My fiancée, who is passionate about the built environment, enjoyed being able to talk about the work done in both locations. My nephew enjoyed a cup of chocolate ice cream and the faux-flower-wearing skeletons at Sugar Ghost Ice Cream and Bubble Tea.

We spent a little bit of time talking about and looking at Summer Avenue, then we hopped back on North Parkway to hustle down to Greenbelt Park by the Mississippi River. It was a sunny, breezy spring day, and there were picnickers, joggers, dog-walkers, pot-smokers, cyclists, and everyone in between enjoying it. There’s something special about being close to the river, and we all felt it. Until I accidentally knocked my nephew off a tree while we were playing some game in which we were both (I think?) territorial spiders locked in bitter combat. Oops. Everyone was okay, though it was decided that perhaps it was time to move on.

We drove through the South Main Arts District, where my uncle used to pick up his contacts. We talked about the trolleys, the changes, the things that had stayed the same. We drove past a busy FedExForum and saw young people popping wheelies on ATVs. We waved as we passed both business and entertainment districts Downtown, and I pointed out a billboard of Ja Morant in the Vitruvian Man pose.

Eventually we made it back to my house to make dinner and play board games, not unlike how we used to spend so much time at my Grannie’s house when I was a child. It was modest, but not without its own magic.

I guess, in many ways, that’s true of Memphis, too.

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News Blog News Feature

Juneteenth Questioned as National Holiday, West Tennessee’s Birthday Poster, Tax Coffers Full, and, Like, A Ton of Tourism Jobs

Questioning Juneteenth

With tons of Juneteenth celebrations on the horizon for Memphis this weekend, a national group of Black conservative leaders want a halt to make the day a national holiday. 

2019 Memphis Juneteenth Urban Music Festival (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Project 21, “the leading voice of Black conservatives for over 25 years” and sponsored by the D.C.-based National Center for Public Policy Research, said making Juneteenth a national holiday could further divide Americans. 

”I constantly hear everyone taking about unity, but would a federal holiday end up being a unifier?” Project 21 member Marie Fischer asked in a news release. “Or, would it give fuel to those who support critical race theory by pointing out a day that marks one group as an oppressor and another as the oppressed? 

“Such a holiday could be easily hijacked by those who insist that Blacks only advance when it benefits white elites. Nothing seems to get pushed these days unless it fits a specific narrative.” 

A birthday poster

(Credit: State of Tennessee)

Tennessee is readying to celebrate 225 years of statehood, and posters for each of the state’s three Grand Divisions were unveiled Thursday. 

Posters for each Grand Division feature music and a musical instrument. Middle Tennessee (home of Nashville) got an acoustic guitar. East Tennessee (birthplace of country music) got a fiddle. West Tennessee got an electric guitar that looks much like Lucille, B.B. King’s famous six-string. 

The West Tennessee poster also features a Stax album bursting with sun rays, looking like those from Sun Studios in an interesting mash-up. West Tennessee also got a big river, river boats, a plow, and some grain, noting the region’s rich agricultural history, and a bald cypress tree. 

(Credit: State of Tennessee)

Not too bad for state leaders. If you believe the standard Tennessee license plate, you’d think it’s completely covered by the Smokey Mountains. 

Tax coffers runneth over (by $432M)

Tennessee tax coffers were fuller than expected for the month of May.

May tax revenues were $1.6 billion, according to Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley. That figure is $432 million more than estimates. State tax revenues were $587.3 million more than May 2020 and the overall growth rate was 59.8 percent.

“Just as April tax revenue receipts revealed substantial growth, May state tax revenues continue to reflect extraordinary increases compared to this same time last year when most economic activity was weakened because of the pandemic,” Eley said. “When comparing May 2021 tax growth to May 2019, the monthly growth is 34.5 percent rather than the 59.8 percent growth over May 2020.”

Sales tax revenue grew across all industries, except for groceries and food stores, which saw slight reductions. 

Tourism/hospitality jobs: we got ’em

State leaders are hoping to help attract workers to the state’s tourism sector, the second-largest industry in Tennessee. 

The “Come Work, Come Play” campaign launched this week by the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and HospitalityTN. It “urges prospective employees to consider hospitality jobs for their flexible hours, career advancement opportunities, and strong sense of community.”

(Credit: State of Tennessee)

“Tens of thousands of Tennesseans lost their jobs during the pandemic and the leisure and hospitality industry was hit the hardest, accounting for 72.3 percent of net jobs lost in the state over 2019,” according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Tennessee’s leisure and hospitality industry added 9,100 jobs in April 2021. 

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News News Blog

List: Priciest Airbnb Stays in Town


From a pink “glamper” in Cooper-Young to a ’70s-style mansion in East Memphis, there are a little over 300 places on the Airbnb market in the Memphis area.

About 106,000 people stayed in Shelby County Airbnbs in 2018, earning hosts here about $10.9 million, the company previously reported.

Airbnbs the Memphis area range from $30 a night up to $9,000 a night. In case you were wondering what the most expensive Airbnb options here in Memphis are, we’ve compiled a list of the five priciest stays in town.


#5 Do you want to spend a night in the house Elvis designed and gifted to his doctor? Well, you can, for $800 a night. This 70s-style East Memphis home boasts a whopping seven bedrooms and 6.5 baths. It can house up to 14 guests. It’s complete with a racquetball court and 40,000-gallon heated swimming pool.

From the host: “Great way for large groups or family reunions to come to Memphis. The feeling is all retro, just the way it was in the ’70’s plus a few modern upgrades like 8 flat-screen tvs and new appliances. It is very spacious, with a huge den with bar, banana plant solarium, living room plus bonus room overlooking the racquetball court, including a shuffleboard table. Library that joins to one of the master suites. Another master has a pool view. The upstairs master was Elvis’.”

List: Priciest Airbnb Stays in Town (4)


#4 Coming in fourth, at $949 a night, is a five-bedroom mid-Century modern home in East Memphis.

The 4,000-square-foot house can fit up to 14 guests. The host touts the home’s “professionally designed six-figure backyard with custom Gunite saltwater pool, soothing waterfall, and legendary playground.

More from the host: “Lights adorn the entire backyard and the pool, and ensure that the setting sun won’t cause an early end to your festivities. The entire space is fenced for your privacy and the surrounding garden envelops you in peace. The grill, outdoor table, and all the seating spaces are for your enjoyment.”

List: Priciest Airbnb Stays in Town (4)


#3 In third place is a two-bedroom apartment located Downtown, ringing up at $1,077 a night. The home, “Perfect Stay Alfred on Madison Avenue,” has three bathrooms and can sleep up to six guests.

From the host: “The Madison Avenue vacation rental offers, style, function, and comfort to make your stay in Memphis absolutely magical. With a spacious layout, this two-bedroom will feel just the home of your dreams, upscale stainless steel appliances, fast WIFI, and convenient in-unit laundry.”

List: Priciest Airbnb Stays in Town (4)

#2 The second-priciest local Airbnb comes in at $2,000 a night. Billed as a “New Home with Pool 10 Minutes to Fedex World Golf,” the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Collierville home, can house eight guests.

Here’s how the host describes the space: “Beautiful one-year-old home with all the amenities: pool, outdoor living space with fireplace, new appliances, yoga room, high-speed WIFI, Sonos sound system throughout, LifX lighting, four bedrooms, and modern contemporary decor throughout.”

List: Priciest Airbnb Stays in Town (4)


#1 Finally, number one on the list is a Midtown condo near Overton Square that sleeps four guests. This two-bedroom condo has a price tag of $9,000 a night. Yep, you read that correctly. The apartment is listed at $9,000. The host did not immediately respond to the Flyer‘s request to clarify the listing price.

The host also doesn’t provide a description of the place on the listing. Just this lone picture showing pretty much … nothing.  

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Memphis in Muck

“Memphis in May Honors Oppression”: There’s a headline you don’t see every day, and it comes to us courtesy of Kurdish-American activist Goran Sadjadi and the Zaneti Journal, a news blog about Kurdish issues in the Middle East.

Sadjadi, who passionately writes about the Turkish government’s refusal to tolerate minority culture, probably won’t be relieved to discover that, in reality, the only Turkey anybody actually “honors” at Memphis in May is a barbecued leg.

Hindpart Before

In this confusing time of deep economic uncertainty, Memphians should be thankful that so many wealthy European tourists want to leave their decadent socialistic ashrams to visit our city and learn about its poor but musically rich culture. Still, that doesn’t excuse some Beatlecentric revisionism that appeared last week in the U.K. edition of the Times Online. According to the TOL, “Record numbers of UK residents [made] a pilgrimage to [Memphis], dubbed the “Liverpool of America.”

“The Liverpool of America? Limey, please. Memphis rocked the world when Lennon and McCartney were still in a skiffle band.

Very Stimulating

Ah, the Grizzlies: Memphis’ long wished for, finally arrived, and mostly underwhelming NBA franchise. To prop up sagging ticket sales, the Griz are making hoop fans a deal that only George W. Bush could love. In exchange for the already ill-advised $600 economic stimulus checks being issued by the U.S. government (and arriving in mail boxes soon!), the Grizzlies will present fans with a pair of terrace-level season tickets and $25 worth of Grizzly bucks. Although this represents more than $1,000 in savings to the customer, everyone knows those $600 checks are supposed to be spent on drugs and gambling.

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Opinion

The ABCs of TDZs

What do condos and a golf course in Pigeon Forge in the Smokies, a Bible-story theme park in Middle Tennessee, and Graceland have in common? They’re all proposed Tourism Development Zones, the latest craze in public finance in Tennessee.

Last week, the state legislature approved TDZs, as they’re called, for Graceland and the Mid-South Fairgrounds.

The government jargon is confusing, but the idea is fairly straightforward and not really new: A hot tourist destination generates additional property and sales taxes that fund public improvements that generate more private development, and so on.

Although it isn’t called a TDZ, Tunica is an obvious example of a big tourism windfall. A county with 10,000 residents lays a 4 percent tax on the casinos, netting over $50 million a year. Many of the customers come from afar. The taxes fund new schools, roads, law enforcement, fitness centers, a downtown mall, and an arena. City and county leaders have to work hard just to think up ways to spend all the money. Property taxes in Tunica were cut to zero. Now that’s tourism-driven development.

TDZs were originally supposed to help pay for convention centers and “qualified public use facilities.” The definition has been stretched to include privately owned tourist attractions and “qualified associated development” a mile and a half away. Tennessee lawmakers, apparently fearing a cascade of “me-too” requests from small-scale TDZ projects across the state, set a threshold of at least $200 million of investment. But when wishful thinking is the ante, players will always be drawn to the table, including the developer of the proposed Bible Park USA near Murfreesboro.

In Memphis, Graceland is a tourist attraction with worldwide recognition. But it counts visitors in hundreds of thousands, while Gatlinburg and Tunica count them in millions. Investor Robert S.X. Sillerman, whose company, CKX Inc., owns the marketing rights to Elvis Presley, says it will spend over $100 million on two hotels, an expanded visitors center, and retail shops if the public sector does about $60 million. According to CKX filings, this will “grow the Graceland experience as the centerpiece of the Whitehaven section of Memphis.” Having sold records, movies, and memorabilia, the King of Rock-and-Roll is now selling buried power lines, blight removal, and clean streets.

The Mid-South Fairgrounds as a TDZ is another stretch. Tourism was the driving force of the fairgrounds when Libertyland opened on July 4th, 1976, the American bicentennial. The Mid-South Fair was a regional draw, and there were major concerts at the Mid-South Coliseum. Thirty-one years later, Libertyland and the Coliseum are closed, the cattle barns are an eyesore, and the fair will soon be moving, The only “qualified public use facility” that can lap up state TDZ funds is the stadium.

Whatever happens at the fairgrounds in its next incarnation will primarily be for the patronage and benefit of Memphians, not tourists. Say there is some combination of a renovated or new football stadium, a minimally renovated Coliseum, the Salvation Army/Kroc recreational center, the Children’s Museum, playing fields, a school, new housing in the Beltline neighborhood east of the fairgrounds, and one or more big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart or Target. Where’s the tourism tax windfall?

A typical University of Memphis in-conference football game crowd is about 30,000. Unless the Tigers get into a Bowl Championship Series conference, that isn’t likely to change. If the retailers and restaurants, aka “qualified associated development,” fail or don’t come, everything else is either publicly owned or nonprofit, and that means no tax revenue, and taxpayers are left holding the bag.

Improving the fairgrounds and Elvis Presley Boulevard with ordinary taxes may be hard politically. But twisting the meaning of plain words to collar state or federal funding is a dangerous game. Look at the FedExForum parking garage and its phantom MATA station. Some of the most extravagant follies in Memphis — the trolley, The Pyramid, Mud Island, Beale Street Landing — have been or will be built in the name of tourism, which is one reason many Memphians regard them with apathy or resentment. Anyone who proposes to develop Graceland or the Mid-South Fairgrounds (including Henry Turley, who is a board member of the parent company of this newspaper) has their work cut out for them, even with TDZ approval from Nashville.