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27
2021 was best tourism year ever for Alabama & the Gulf Coast
It's that time of year. Interstate 10 and any other route heading toward the U.S.S. Alabama Battleship or the beaches are packed with vacationers to our little slice of paradise. The traffic may be bumper to bumper Friday afternoons and wait times at our favorite restaurants may be longer than we'd like, but visitors to Mobile and Baldwin counties provide vital financial support to our area and the entire state.
According to the 2021 Alabama Tourism Economic Impact report, the 28.2 million visitors to our state spent $19.67 billion last year with the Gulf Coast accounting for 46 percent of that amount. Our state made more than $6 billion in earnings from those visitors, saving the average Alabama family $631 in additional taxes to maintain current services. In addition, leisure and hospitality directly created the need for 60,000 jobs in our area in 2021.
Statewide, these numbers mark 2021 as the best tourism year on record for Alabama with a 47 percent increase over 2020 and a 17 percent increase over 2019. Baldwin and Mobile counties' banner years were a driving force behind that growth.
More than 8 million people visited Baldwin County and more than 3 million visited Mobile County in 2021, according to the report. In the Gulf Coast region, which includes both counties, tourists spent $9 billion, and of that, the state earned $3 billion. And that's not even taking into consideration the impact of the jobs created by those tourism dollars, nearly 90,000 indirectly. Mobile Mayor Sandy Simpson told Visit Mobile of the report, "The Mobile area has so much to offer, from our wondrous natural resources to the hotels, restaurants, attractions and unique events that make this a great place to live and visit. Mobile has become a destination for tourists from all over."
It doesn't come as a shock to us that Alabama's Gulf Coast is special. And one of the key findings of this year's report was that others across the nation are jumping on board. Alabama jumped from 30th place two years ago to 4th place in Google searches about hotels, cities, attractions, restaurants and airlines by state, according to the Alabama Tourism Department's report announcement. "More people searched for Alabama information than they did for such populous states as Texas, California, Hawaii and New York," the announcement explains.
Why does this matter to people who already live here? Well besides traffic and restaurant wait times, it affects property values. More often than not, people want to vacation places where people also want to live. If this historic sellers' market has proven anything, it's that more people wanting to live in a certain place increases housing prices, and therefore, the home equity for those who already own in the area. It's the culmination of our people, our beaches, our industries and our visitors that help make Alabama's Gulf Coast a desirable place to both vacation and call home.
