Published on : Wednesday, April 25, 2018
This year, the Port of Seattle expects approximately 1.1 million cruise passengers, ahead of the record of 2017. For cruise ships, Alaska is the largest destination in the world. For the second year consecutively, Seattle will be the largest cruise port on the West Coast.
Cruise passengers comprise a significant part of the tourism economy of Port Seattle, spending money in town before and after their voyages. In 2017, almost 40 million visitors arrived to the city and county, as per a recent report from Visit Seattle, the 1,000-member nonprofit tourism marketing organization. That comprises 2.6 percent from last year and marks the eighth straight year creating a record. Overnight visitors increased by 3.9 percent to almost 21 million.
Tourism Economics and Longwoods International calculates that visitors contributed $7.4 billion into the regional economy. Jobs related to travel and tourism was up 27 percent to more than 76,000 (about 5.6 percent of all employment in King County.
To quote Tom Norwalk, president of Visit Seattle, told me the region also “had incredible growth from international business. And this is despite being underserved by international (air) carriers. We’ve been adding (flights) but there is more we can be doing.”
Tags: King County tourism