Visitors to the City of Houston spent a record $10.8 billion in 2024, up 8.6% from the previous year. Factoring in the secondary effect of that spending on the city’s economy, the total economic impact reached $16.6 billion last year. That’s according to a new report completed by the research group Tourism Economics for Houston First.

The total number of visitors to the City of Houston reached 53.9 million in 2024, up 4.8% and a new record for visitation. The total included 52.6 million domestic or U.S. visitors and 1.3 million international visitors.

Visitors to the city helped generate $2.2 billion in state and local taxes and directly supported nearly 121,800 jobs.

Looking broadly, more than 92 million visited the metro region as a whole in 2024, up 5.5% over 2023. More than 89 million visitors to the area were from the U.S. with another 3 million coming from abroad—including nearly 2 million from Mexico alone. Visitation from Mexico increased more than 16% year over year.

Direct visitor spending in the metro region totaled $16.6 billion, up 9.2% year over year. That resulted in a total economic impact of $27 billion in 2024 and 206,589 jobs supported regionwide.

Written by A.J. Mistretta 

Photo: The Beck Building at MFAH