Tourism growth in Tennessee, Hub City spotlighted at Chamber Breakfast Club meeting
JACKSON, Tenn. — The Greater Jackson Chamber invited a special guest to their event to talk about a special part of our state as part of their Breakfast Club series.
“We’ve had growth in Jackson and in Madison County that Lori and her team working with all of you are doing,” said Mark Ezell, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department Of Tourist Development.
Ezell talked to the Chamber, along with many others Friday morning at the DoubleTree Hotel, about the importance of tourism in the Volunteer State.
Afterwards, he spoke with us more about the recent success in our area.
“It was great that in 2023, which is our latest information, that Jackson and Madison County had a record visitor spending yet again,” Ezell said. “Being up over 7% in 2023. So they’ve got a great trajectory because they are located between Nashville and Memphis with lots of assets not only here, but also around them.”
Commissioner Ezell gave a lot of data to back up the claims of success Tennessee has had financially from recent tourism.
We were able to ask him what the importance is for sharing this information at events like this.
“Well I think it’s helpful for businesses especially, and that was my background being a former businessman, to really understand the value of a visitor and what taxes we can get from those folks to come here and spend money. We tax them and then they go home and you don’t have education and a lot of those infrastructure costs. They’re really valuable for Tennesseans,” Ezell said.
In fact, Commissioner Ezell says that last year generated almost $2 billion in visitor taxes across the state.
Tennessee ranked 11th in the nation for travel spending last year.
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