SEATTLE — Seattle and King County saw record-breaking numbers of tourists with nearly 41 million visitors last year.
Visit Seattle revealed the numbers at its annual meeting at Benaroya Hall Monday.
The total of 40.9 million visitors is up 2.5 percent from 2017.
The visitors spent $7.8 billion -- an increase of nearly 6 percent.
“What we're finding is people really are interested, want to come, maybe have not come for a while, and want to come back to explore this great part of the world,” said Visit Seattle president and CEO Tom Norwalk.
As a result, tourism-related jobs also grew in the city and county last year. In 2018, there were 78,400 travel-related jobs.
Visit Seattle says the demand for meetings in Seattle is part of why the Washington State Convention Center's expansion project is underway. Last year, 50 national conventions were hosted there.
The marketing organization says the opening of several new hotels added more than 2,200 rooms, making the highest increase in supply in more than 25 years.
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