Case in point: A report from Oxford Economics — supported by the Destination & Travel Foundation — explores “how investments in the visitor economy drive broader economic growth.” Some key findings, most of them of the “I knew it!” variety:

1. As incomes rise, consumer spending on travel has grown at an even faster rate and employment in the travel economy has led growth during the recent economic recovery.

2. Hospitality and tourism has outperformed the aggregate of all other traded cluster export sectors since 1998, with employment expanding nearly 10 percent while all others shrank 1 percent.

3. As incomes rise and globalization continues, U.S. destinations are poised to continue to capitalize through targeted promotional investments.

4. Destination marketing plays an integral and indispensable role in the competitiveness of the visitor economy by pooling resources to provide the scale and marketing infrastructure to promote a place to national and international markets.

SOURCE: Destination Promotion: An Engine of Economic Development, Oxford Economics