Los Angeles is on pace for a record-breaking tourism year, officials with the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board (LA Tourism) announced today.  A mid-year forecast projects the destination will welcome 41.3 million visitors by year-end, 2.4 percent above the current record of 40.3 million visitors set in 2011.

For the first half of the year, the destination’s leading indicators for visitor volume posted positive gains over last year including:

-    hotel occupancy in the month of July averaged 83.9 percent, the highest monthly occupancy rate in the last 25 years of reported lodging metrics;
-    month-over-month hotel occupancy rates have exceed 2011 occupancy rates every month this year;
-    year-to-date hotel occupancy through July is 76.1 percent, up 4.5 percent over the same time period last year;
-    passenger traffic at LAX through the end of July was up 3.3 percent over 2011, putting the airport on pace to exceed 2007 pre-recession passenger totals.

In addition, Los Angeles will host 24 citywide conventions in 2012, the most since 2001, representing the largest quantity of consumed hotel rooms since 2000.

“This is great news for our local tourism industry and our local economy.  Every visitor and every visitor dollar spent plays a critical role in creating jobs and in keeping our local economy strong,” said LA Tourism President and CEO Mark Liberman.  “With the new Tourism Marketing District support, we now have a stronger voice in the increasingly competitive travel space that is already paying off and helping to drive demand to visit.”

LA’s tourism industry continues to benefit from strong domestic visitation from key markets including San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Phoenix, Sacramento and Chicago; its position as a gateway city for Asia, including the growing China market; and the outlook for emerging markets in South America, especially Brazil.

LA Tourism launches a new domestic arts and culture campaign this fall to inspire travel to Los Angeles during October and November, traditionally a shoulder season for the destination.  In the first quarter of 2013, the organization will launch a new domestic consumer branding campaign designed to inspire travelers to choose Los Angeles for spring and summer travel and continue its popular dineLA restaurant program.  Internationally, LA Tourism has plans to launch expanded marketing efforts in Canada, the UK and Australia and to pursue new global meetings, incentives, exhibitions and tradeshows (MICE) business.