If you think there may be too many tourists in Southern California as you drive down Hollywood Boulevard or try to visit Disneyland, you may not be surprised that a record-setting 45.5 million people visited Los Angeles County in 2015, an increase of 1.3 million from the previous year, tourism officials announced Monday.
While giant crowds may irritate some local residents, the numbers were a delight to local officials and businesses dependent on tourist dollars.
The new numbers marked the fifth consecutive year of tourism growth, according to Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board officials.
Garcetti attributed the uptick to “investing billions at our airport, in mass transit, and other assets that are making L.A. more exciting and accessible than ever.”
Los Angeles International Airport, which is owned by the city of Los Angeles, is undergoing an $8.5 billion modernization project, while $5 billion in rail projects connecting to the airport are underway.
Garcetti has set a goal of increasing tourism to Los Angeles to 50 million people per year by 2020.
“Los Angeles is a place where the world comes together for cultural experiences and celebrated attractions that cannot be found anywhere else,” he said.
Domestic visitors, numbering 38.8 million people, grew 2.8 percent from the previous year.
International visitors made up 6.7 million of the overall visitors in 2015, an increase of 3.3 percent from 2014.
Mexico had the largest number of visitors — 1.7 million. Chinese visitors numbered 779,000, a 13 percent jump from 2014, while the number of visitors from South Korea grew by 11 percent.
Rounding out the top 10 list for visitors’ countries of origin were Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany and Brazil.
Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who chairs the Trade, Commerce and Technology Committee, said the 2015 numbers “demonstrate and confirm” that Los Angeles is “truly a global city.”
“Last year’s record-setting tourism numbers send a message to the world that L.A. is open for business, and I know that the world will respond in 2016 and in the years ahead,” he said.
—City News Service