minnesota tourism conference

Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference 2023 Reports Positive Tourism Gains, Plans Ahead

2023 Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference stage. Credit: Explore Minnesota

Explore Minnesota held its annual tourism conference February 28, gathering tourism professionals across the state under one roof at the DoubleTree by Hilton Bloomington–Minneapolis South to report on the state of the industry in 2022 and discuss the road ahead.

In 2022, the state welcomed 77.2 million visitors, and 254,000 people were employed in the leisure and hospitality industry as of December—up 10% over the past year, which is good news for meeting professionals with staffing concerns when sourcing destinations. Additionally, Lauren Bennett McGinty, executive director for Explore Minnesota Tourism, noted that compared to other state industry sub-sectors, leisure and hospitality posted the highest year-over-year growth and is the fourth-largest sector for employment in Minnesota.

While the state may not be on everyone’s radar yet, this hidden gem of the North is starting to receive national attention; recently, Minnesota made it on to more than 40 top lists in national news outlets and magazines , 33 of which were top 10 placements. For the second year in a row, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was named the best airport in North America in March by the Airport Service Quality program, which surveyed 465,000 travelers in more than 90 countries. 

“I’m continuing to be in awe of how everyone who discovers Minnesota for the first time discovers that we do in fact have more than just snow and lakes,” McGinty said.

While Minnesota’s tourism numbers are looking up and interest is rising in the state, Explore Minnesota acknowledged that there is still much work to be done to boost meetings and events business in the state and also up its hotel occupancy rate—currently sitting at 43.6%—which is below the total U.S. occupancy average (53.5%).

“Business and event travel is coming back. We want to bolster growth through these areas and are seeking expanded funding to support large-scale sporting events and other major events in major population areas,” McGinty noted. 

Minnesota has previously seen success with hosting large sporting events including the 2022 NCAA Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis, 2019 Men’s Final Four in Minneapolis and 2018 Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis.

U.S. senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar delivered remarks virtually, while Gov. Tim Walz attended in person on the heels of his budget proposal that included an increase for Explore Minnesota after the DMO’s base budget remained stagnant for more than a decade.

[Related:  The Essential Guide for Meetings in Minnesota ]

Event News: Minnesota’s Bid for the World’s Fair

During her remarks at the conference, McGinty also said that Explore Minnesota is supporting the state and country’s bid to bring Expo 2027—a Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) Specialized Expo—to Bloomington, Minnesota.

These Expos are international events (historically called World’s Fairs in the U.S.) where nations, civic groups, companies and others host pavilions and exhibits highlighting advances in social, technological and scientific areas of global significance.

If the U.S. bid is successful, it would be the first time a World’s Fair would be held in the country since New Orleans hosted the event in 1984. Minnesota’s proposed Specialized Expo theme, “Healthy People, Healthy Planet,” would focus on health and wellness. If brought to Minnesota, the event is projected to draw 13.3 million attendees over 93 days in the summer of 2027, generating an estimated $733 million in new spending and 33,000 jobs, according to Expo 2027’s website .

Read this next:  6 Minneapolis-St. Paul Sports Venues With Winning Event Spaces

Danielle started at Meetings Today in March 2019 after seven years of editorial experience in the travel and food industries. She oversees all of the destination content for Meetings Today and collaborates with the team on digital content strategy and content marketing initiatives.

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Governor Walz unveils new initiative at 2024 tourism conference

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – On Tuesday, Explore Minnesota , the state’s tourism department, hosted its 2024 tourism conference at the Mayo Civic Center, where Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flannagan introduced a new campaign called ‘ Star of the North .’

More than 500 travel and tourism industry leaders gathered in Rochester for the campaign launch.

This new marketing effort is to highlight Minnesota’s destinations, hospitality businesses and other unique experiences only found in the land of 10,000 lakes.

It comes after the 2023 state legislature approved the addition of $4 million to Explore Minnesota’s budget, making its operating budget, last year, more than $25 million.

Walz said this budget won’t be a one-time bump.

“This idea that we made the case of going out and telling the rest of the country and the world about Minnesota, we do our trade missions to talk about,” Walz said. “This is a great place to do business. Explore Minnesota has always done a wonderful job of saying what we have here, especially when it comes to recreation with our resorts, things like that.”

Explore Minnesota said it’s working to promote Minnesota to travelers nationally and internationally.

The conference this year focused on tourism marketing and livability in the Gopher State.

“I think the willingness to just be innovative and creative and try new things and invent new things,” Lauren Bennett McGinty, Explore Minnesota executive director said. “I think it really goes a long way and it shows people that we care about our state and that we’re really proud of ourselves.”

She said the new tourism campaign, ‘Star of the North’, aims to generate more tourism revenue.

Minnesota saw an unusual winter and some tourism and hospitality organizations have had to pivot.

“We’re an industry that’s had to pivot a lot considering COVID over the last few years and we were also an industry during COVID that was first to close and last to open,” Bill Von Bank, Experience Rochester vice president of communications said. “So we’re still in recovery mode, but we’re seeing some great thing things around tourism recovery within our state and nationwide.”

Last year’s spring and summer season brought in $1 billion in Minnesota tourism revenue.

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Register now for virtual attendance.

The Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference is the annual learning opportunity designed specifically for the Minnesota tourism industry. 

Explore Minnesota is excited to offer a hybrid option for this year's tourism conference. This full-day event will offer incredible opportunities for sponsor recognition and engagement. The annual conference brings together all sectors of the Minnesota tourism industry for inspirational and educational sessions while discovering new opportunities for marketing their community or business.

Miss Shannan Paul

Lauren Bennett McGinty

P. J. Fleck

Peter Slatin

Amanda Brinkman

No records found.

As of Jan. 31, 2022, Explore Minnesota has updated the policies for in-person participation at the 2022 Tourism Conference to be held at the Sheraton Hotel Minnetonka on Mar. 1, 2022.  The participation policy is outlined below, and Explore Minnesota reserves the right to modify these policies and procedures at any time, given the rapidly changing nature of the current global pandemic.  

In-person attendees will be required to be vaccinated and boosted or produce a negative COVID-19 test and masking will be required. Any registered in-person attendee who cannot comply with the guidelines above may receive a full refund of paid registration fees, up to and including the day of the event. 

Read Explore Minnesota’s In-Person Event Participation COVID-19 Guidelines

Please direct questions to [email protected] .

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Governor Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan speak at tourism conference in Rochester

(ABC 6 News) — More than 500 travel and tourism leaders from across Minnesota are gathered in Rochester for the 2024 Tourism conference.

Lauren McGinty, the Executive Director of Explore Minnesota, presented the state of the industry, as well as a new state marketing campaign, “Star of the North” during the morning event.

Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan are speaking on Tuesday afternoon.

With travel demand high, Explore Minnesota markets ‘Dream State’ to lure visitors

[anvplayer video=”5093098″ station=”998122″]

Minnesota’s tourism promotion office is set debut a new marketing campaign to lure visitors to the state.

Explore Minnesota’s annual statewide conference kicked off Tuesday with a look at the struggles since the pandemic started, as well as an optimistic look at 2022.

Lauren Bennett McGinty, who took over as the director of Explore Minnesota in November, said tourism isn’t expected to see pre-pandemic levels this year. However, she noted that stronger travel volume is expected this year, and the state is hoping to draw eager travelers to Minnesota.

“While we don’t anticipate a complete return to pre-pandemic levels until late 2023 or early 2024, we are working our way back and anticipate stronger travel volume in 2022,” Bennett McGinty said. “Minnesota is a unique, four-season destination, and we have a major opportunity moving forward to position the state as a top 10 travel destination. After nearly two years of pandemic constraints, Explore Minnesota is ready to execute a new strategic direction to attract travelers from our state, around the country and across the globe who are eager to get back out, explore, and reconnect with the people and places they care about most.”

In an effort to lure visitors to the state, Explore Minnesota will debut its new marketing campaign, “ Dream State ,” this spring. The office says, in addition to targeting travelers from traditional markets — including bordering states, Illinois, Nebraska and Colorado — it will expand its reach further this year to include Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, Wyoming and Utah.

This picture shows a screengrab of Explore Minnesota's 2022 summer marketing campaign, "Dream State." (Courtesy: Explore Minnesota)

“The last two years have been challenging, but demand for travel is on the rise. While we can’t forecast anything specific, we can be confident that we have a lot of exciting events like the 2022 NCAA Women’s Final Four, 2022 MLS All-Star Game and 3M Open, and plenty of great ideas in place to build a bigger, bolder and brighter future for Minnesota’s tourism industry,” Bennett McGinty added.

Explore Minnesota also looked back at the past year, saying it has used over $3 million in tourism crisis and recovery grants to support hundreds of Minnesota communities.

Its fall tourism and hospitality survey also gave a glimpse of how the industry is recovering. While some areas – like business travel – have been slow to recover, others are doing well, such as the 39% of leisure and travel businesses who reported being at or above pre-pandemic business levels.

That survey showed business activity in the tourism and hospitality industry continues trending the right way, but many are still not where they were before the pandemic, particularly in the metro and southern regions of the state.

Click here to see more about the Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference.

New Minnesota marketing ads unveiled, aiming to draw more tourists and new residents

Travel industry experts got a first look at Explore Minnesota’s new national ad campaign touting the state.

By Kelly Smith

ROCHESTER — Minnesotans got a first look Tuesday at the state’s new ads touting tourism and a move to the Land of 10,000 Lakes that will launch in March — the largest nationwide marketing campaign the state has ever done.

The ads in the new “Star of the North” campaign aim to draw more visitors and new residents, and will launch March 4 in 22 states and Canada. Explore Minnesota, the state’s tourism arm, unveiled the ads to travel industry experts at its annual conference in Rochester.

This is the first time Explore Minnesota is marketing beyond tourism, hoping to inspire Americans to consider relocating to Minnesota, with digital, TV and radio ads targeting communities such as Seattle, Boston and Austin, Texas. Separate tourism ads will air mostly in the Midwest as well as cities including Denver and Dallas.

“Our campaigns are going to showcase the best of our state,” said Lauren Bennett McGinty, executive director of Explore Minnesota. “Minnesota can be the next positive chapter in their journey.”

The effort is needed, leaders say, to keep up with other states’ marketing efforts and fill critical jobs. Minnesota’s 3.1% unemployment rate — lower than the national rate — means the state has more job openings than workers . Minnesota also loses more residents than it gains.

“This campaign allows us to stand out,” Bennett McGinty said. “We want people across the country to know our secret: ... Life is better in Minnesota.”

The national ad campaigns are part of new efforts at Explore Minnesota thanks to more than $25 million in extra funding the Legislature approved last year for the agency over the next two years, the first time its budget has increased in more than a decade and the largest investment ever.

Gov. Tim Walz said Minnesotans have long been humble and don’t brag about the state, but he said now is the time to sell its merits. He and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan addressed about 500 people at Tuesday’s conference, the largest attendance in decades of it.

“Nothing drives me crazier than to see other states advertising here knowing that what we have here can compete anywhere,” Walz said. “We need to tell the story ... This is the place to be.”

The documentary-style ads feature influencers experiencing Minnesota for the first time such as female anglers from North Carolina catching walleye on Lake of the Woods after visiting the headwaters of the Mississippi River and dining at Krewe in St. Joseph. The livability campaign highlights recent transplants from other states, including Oregon and New York, who have moved to Sartell, Minneapolis and Duluth.

“Talent recruitment is so important,” said Bill Von Bank of Experience Rochester, where the number of visitors has increased this year, nearing pre-pandemic levels. “Once you visit, maybe you’ll move here. Every state wants that.”

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Of the new state funding to Explore Minnesota, $11 million is starting a new division called Explore Minnesota for Business, focused on economic development. The first phase is focused on attracting residents, followed by campaigns to lure new businesses and pitch students on staying here for college and after graduation. Minnesota loses more college students than it attracts .

More than half of the states in the country have livability campaigns like this, Bennett McGinty added.

“To date Minnesota has been too quiet on that,” she said. “We haven’t been doing a good job of marketing of what we have to offer those job seekers or business owners. But that is changing.”

Most of the new funding, including for the new economic development division, is one-time funding this biennium. Bennett McGinty said she will likely be back at the state Capitol next year to ask legislators to sustain the funding.

“This is a long-term plan,” she said. “This isn’t just one and done. I’m hoping people see the effectiveness. I think people understand we need workers.”

Walz said the state will continue to fund the agency’s operation.

Minnesota’s leisure and hospitality sector makes up the fourth-largest industry in the state, with about 250,000 employees at resorts, hotels, restaurants, museums and theaters. The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the sector, which lost $14 billion and saw its workforce shrink by 23,000 workers from 2019.

There are some signs of a recovery. Average monthly hotel occupancy rates bounced back to 55% in 2022, up from 36% in 2020, though still below 2019′s rate and still lagging behind U.S. and other metro areas’ hotel indicators. The number of passengers traveling through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport increased to 31 million in 2022, up from less than 15 million in 2020 but still below the nearly 40 million travelers at MSP in 2019 .

In 2022, the state recorded 77 million visitors — finally rebounding to the same number as 2019. Those visitors generated more than $13 billion in economic impact. New data comes out in April.

Explore Minnesota is also rebuilding, back to its pre-pandemic staffing levels of about 50 employees.

“We have some ways to go, but ... 2023 has proved that travel is back,” Bennett McGinty said. “I would love for Minnesota to have a strong brand that lives on for a long time.”

about the writer

Kelly smith.

Kelly Smith  covers nonprofits/philanthropy for the Star Tribune and is based in Minneapolis. Since 2010, she’s covered Greater Minnesota on the state/region team, Hennepin County government, west metro suburban government and west metro K-12 education.

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