RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) – South Dakota’s tourism industry is breaking records with the number of people visiting the Mount Rushmore state.
Travel South Dakota found that 14.7 million people visited the state in 2023. That is about a 5% increase over the year before.
With that many people traveling through the state, the next record makes sense, with 5.1 million hotel rooms booked in 2023. Having more people visit the state doesn’t just benefit businesses either.
“Just a couple of other numbers from our economic impact that I can share are that the tourism industry supports nearly 58,000 jobs in the state which equates to about 1 in 11 and those jobs generated $2.2 billion in income for those employees and their families,” said Wanda Goodman, deputy secretary for Travel South Dakota.
Goodman says that traffic predictions for this year are still high and is hopeful we will continue to break records as we move into 2024.
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