Tourism Up Tennessee and Coffee County

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Department of Tourist Development Commissioner Kevin Triplett announced this week that Tennessee tourism’s direct domestic and international travel expenditures reached a new all-time record high of $20.7 billion in 2017, up 6.3 percent over the previous year, as reported by the U.S. Travel Association. The announcement was made at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum.
Tourism brought in $95 million to Coffee County in 2017. Of course, a large portion of that money came from people visiting the county for Bonnaroo in June.
For the 12th consecutive year, tourism topped $1 billion in state and local sales tax revenue, reaching $1.8 billion. That marks a 7.6 percent increase over 2016, higher than the national growth of travel related
state tax revenues of 4.6 percent. Tourism also generated 184,300 jobs for Tennesseans, a 3.1 percent growth year over year.
All 95 counties enjoyed an increase in tourism expenditures. Each county saw more than $1 million in direct travel expenditures in the economic impact of tourism. Five counties exceeded one billion in travel expenditures, including Davidson ($6.505 billion), Shelby ($3.503 billion), Sevier ($2.276 billion), Hamilton ($1.112 billion), and Knox ($1.097 billion).