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Marketing update: visitor guide printed earlier, 270,000 unique visitors defined and county visits total 760,000 for 2024
Summary
BMI and the tourism board reported printing the experience guide earlier, plans for a trolley and golf-cart tours, and visitor metrics: 270,000 unique visitors (overnight visitors as defined) and 760,000 county visitors in 2024; total visits estimated at 6.3 million countywide.
BMI marketing and the Jefferson County Board of Tourism updated the board on visitor guides, promotional distribution and tourism metrics for 2024.
Andrew of BMI said the experience guide is at the printer and will be available in the next few weeks; the team reduced the print run slightly after a state direct-mail program was discontinued. Andrew said the guide will include a fold-out map that highlights downtown Madison and the hilltop, Hanover College and other nearby attractions.
Andrew and board members described plans to expand public-art and visitor tours with a trolley and a proposed golf-cart tour for spring programming. The trolley is in place and staff are developing full programming for 2025.
Andrew reported visitor metrics using the board's visitor definition (stayed at least 90 minutes and traveled more than 35 miles): 270,000 unique visitors fitting that definition for 2024, generating about 1.1 million visits; 2023 had about 281,500 such unique visitors. Using a broader county definition, Jefferson County drew 760,000 unique visitors in 2024 and about 6.3 million visits overall. BMI said occupancy was slightly down in 2024 while higher daily rates helped push innkeeper-tax receipts up. Andrew described a state data mislabeling issue: the state initially showed Madison County rather than Jefferson County on posted collections, but BMI said the state corrected the error after BMI followed up by email.
