BATON ROUGE (AP) — The number of tourists coming to Louisiana keeps going up.
Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser says 28.9 million visitors came to Louisiana last year, up by 200,000 from 2014. He says it marked the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking tourism in Louisiana.
The data on tourism is part of the University of New Orleans's Louisiana Tourism Forecast Report for 2015.
State officials estimate spending by visitors grew in 2015 to $11.5 billion, a 2.7 percent increase over the previous year. The travel and tourism industry generated $843 million in state tax revenues in 2015.
Nungesser says tourism is a bright spot during "difficult economic times in Louisiana." He says every dollar the state invests in tourism generates another $38 and he calls "the return on investment … second to none."
