WATERTOWN, S.D. (KWAT) — The final numbers won’t be in for a while, but they don’t need to be for South Dakota Tourism Secretary Jim Hagen to draw some conclusions.
He says the summer of 2021 was a banner year for tourism and travel in the state.
“It was a crazy busy summer, is the best way to put it,” Hagen said, saying he “couldn’t believe the amount of traffic” he’d seen recently driving on Interstate 90.
Hagen said the state saw a 29% increase in tourism tax revenue in the month of July compared to the same period in 2019. He said he believes South Dakota can keep the momentum going.
“There’s no question the interest in this state has grown astronomically over the last 18 months or so,” Hagen said.
Final tourism numbers will be released in January at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Pierre.
(Mike Tanner, KWAT, contributed this report.)
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