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Cuyahoga County sees record-breaking spike in visitors with 19.2 million

Northeast Ohio is booming.

CLEVELAND — Another record for local tourism has been shattered.

Cuyahoga County saw a spike in visitors to 19.2 million throughout 2018, according to new numbers released by Destination Cleveland early Tuesday morning.

That marks a 3.9 percent increase from 2017 and a 29 percent spike since 2011.

“For the eighth straight year, visitation to Cuyahoga County grew at a faster rate than the U.S. growth rate (1.9 percent in 2018) according to Tourism Economics.”

This surpasses the previous record of 18.5 million visitors set one year prior.

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“Both day and overnight visitor volumes grew from 2017 to 2018 with day visits growing at 2.4 percent and overnight visits increasing by 5.9 percent,” according to a press release from Destination Cleveland. “Day visitors represented 58 percent of the total number of visitors to the region, while 42 percent were overnight visitors. Since 2011, overnight visitation has grown by nearly 32 percent while day visitation increased by 26 percent.”

Officials say travel and tourism within Cuyahoga County “accounted for nearly $6.2 billion in direct sales and a total economic impact of $9.4 billion.”

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