Representatives of Visit Ithaca and the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce presented their 2024 annual report to the Housing and Economic Development Committee on June 4, highlighting marketing, conference sales and special-event activity that county officials say supports local tax revenue and jobs.

Peggy Coleman, president and CEO of the Tompkins County Chamber and sponsor of Visit Ithaca, said the CVB’s 2024 work drove web traffic and partner referrals and helped fill hotel rooms during peak events. "Tourism is economic development," Coleman said, and she provided county-level figures for 2023 (the latest year available from state-level reporting): visitor spending in Tompkins County generated $35 million in economic impact and, she said, if visitors disappeared every household would pay an additional $814 in property taxes to maintain current services.

Visit Ithaca staff described specific results: more than 65,000 outbound clicks from visitithaca.com to partner sites, broad national and international web traffic, and a successful April program tied to the April eclipse. The office organized events including a Hangar Theatre talk by Sasha Sagan that sold about 350 tickets and coordinated transit to Fairhaven (in the path of totality) for viewers; Visit Ithaca said related pages and content received more than 13,000 views during the eclipse period and area hotel rooms sold out on April 7.

The new Ithaca Downtown Conference Center opened July 1, 2024; Visit Ithaca said the center generated 40 proposals and 11 booked conferences in the first six months, producing 747 room nights from four hosted conferences and an estimated $23,000 in hotel tax revenue for those events. The 11 conferences booked in 2024 for 2024–26 have an estimated economic impact of $2.16 million.

Visit Ithaca reported other marketing outcomes including earned-media visits by national journalists, social-media reach and collaborative regional winter campaigns. The bureau said it continues sales outreach for major events such as a forthcoming North American finals event and a national government-alliance conference that will bring attendees in October.

Committee members thanked the Visit Ithaca and Chamber team and asked about specific programming and partnership support; staff described fiscal sponsorship arrangements (for example, the Ithaca Pride Alliance’s fiscal sponsorship by the Chamber Foundation) and marketing support for Bridal and Pride Month activities.