TUCSON, Ariz. — Tucson's tourism industry continues to grow. According to Visit Tucson, the city is at its sixth consecutive year of growth.
You may have noticed traffic around the metropolitan area increasing slightly. That's usually a sign that Snowbirds are in town. But let's not take away from the fact that Tucson has some pretty cool attractions people come here to see year after year.
"But in particular, as we're looking at this year's Gem Show, is the second largest in history with the number of shows. So we've been on a multi-year run with tourism going up month after month," said Dan Gibson, Visit Tucson's communications director.
Visit Tucson compares hotel occupancies and rates. It then looks at a number called revenue per available room. This tells us how much money is being generated each night.
Since 2012, the city's annual hotel/resort room revenue has grown by 41 percent, an increase of more than $120 million.
"And that's the number we've seen go up, month after month. We had a better January of 2019 than we had in 2018," said Gibson.
And of course, the warmer winter weather we get here in Tucson, is alluring for many people trying to escape cold, white, winters up north.
This is why Tucson's tourist season is considered to be January through April.
"As the weather gets bad, I think people realize that by March/April that they're going to be sick of it. And so I think we'll continue to see a pretty strong tourism season. I think there's nothing to expect other than really big numbers this whole year," said Gibson.
Chart courtesy of Visit Tucson:
| Occupancy | Average Daily Rate | Revenue Per Available Room | Occ Inc | ADR Inc | RevPAR Increase | |
| Dec 2018 | 59.2% | $103.23 | $61.16 | 4.6% | 3.3% | 8.1% |
| Nov 2018 | 66.6% | $108.61 | $72.34 | 6.2% | 4.5% | 10.9% |
| Oct 2018 | 65.9% | $113.92 | $75.08 | 2.9% | 2.9% | 5.9% |
| Sept 2018 | 56.2% | $95.06 | $53.39 | -0.7% | -0.8% | -1.4% |
| Aug 2018 | 58.6% | $88.74 | $51.98 | 3.4% | 5.8% | 9.5% |
| July 2018 | 60.1% | $83.51 | $50.15 | 5.3% | 1.2% | 6.5% |
| June 2018 | 59.8% | $88.17 | $52.69 | -1.0% | 3.0% | 1.9% |
| May 2018 | 63.9% | $109.59 | $70.07 | 7.6% | 4.6% | 12.6% |
| April 2018 | 71.5% | $119.43 | $85.35 | 4.7% | 5.4% | 10.3% |
| March 2018 | 83.0% | $132.93 | $110.31 | 5.2% | 6.2% | 11.7% |
| Feb 2018 | 78.1% | $140.46 | $109.72 | -0.7% | 3.2% | 2.5% |
| Jan 2018 | 68.6% | $126.62 | $86.84 | 5.4% | 6.1% | 11.8% |
