ARIZONA, USA — The Arizona Office of Tourism is pushing for international travelers to come back to state 48. Arizona saw a dramatic dip in overseas travel because of the pandemic, but now the office of tourism has high hopes this will be the state's comeback year.
Thousands of visitors are staying in Scottsdale right now because of the Barrett-Jackson car auction and we have more events in the Valley to look forward to.
"I think we’re seeing those positive indicators, great momentum with visitor spending and visitors coming back," Becky Blaine, Deputy Director for the Office of Tourism said. "We are in high season right now we have Barrett-Jackson, The Phoenix Open, spring break, and Cactus League so all these things lead us to a positive spring and summertime."
Blaine said the numbers are already looking good for 2022 even though predictions are tough these days.
"The pandemic has upended seasonality," Blaine added. "There are no rules anymore as to when people will traditionally travel. Some of our international nonstop flights are coming back in April and May, and we've had our daily nonstop from London since August. We’re seeing people traveling at times that weren’t traditional times for people to travel."
2019 set records in terms of visitors and visitor spending. The Office of Tourism wants to reach or even surpass those numbers.
"International tourism is big business for Arizona. In 2019 we saw 6.1 million visitors and they spent over $4 billion dollars here in the state. That fell to 2 million during 2020 because of the shutdown of the borders and international flights."
Since they work on a calendar year, the numbers for 2021 aren't in yet.
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