PHOENIX – Overnight travelers to Arizona spent more than $800 million on stays in Maricopa and Pinal counties last year, new research reveals.

Most of that $773 million was spent in Maricopa, the state’s largest county, with Pinal County at $35 million, according to a study commissioned by the Arizona Department of Tourism. This figure does not include state sales tax.

Statewide cases are up year-on-year, but Arizona continues to struggle to get cases back to pre-pandemic levels.

While most people now see the coronavirus in their rearview mirrors, state officials charged with promoting tourism may face new hurdles. It’s the hot weather here on the national news every night.

Guests spent $28.1 billion last year, up about $4.5 billion from the year before, according to new figures from the survey.

Even discounting for rampant inflation, this represents an increase of $1.3 billion in real dollars, or an increase of about 5%, Dean Runian Associates said.

Taking inflation into account, the true quality of goods and services purchased by tourists is still about 6.3% below 2019 levels, the report said.

Inflation is also reflected in data on total tax revenue from tourism. The roughly $4 billion generated in 2022 is only 7.2% higher than three years ago and far below the 8.0% inflation from 2021-2022.

And while the report shows that tourism directly created 179,000 jobs last year, that’s still less than the number of people working in the industry three years ago.

Still, the agency’s director, Lisa Yurias, believes that deficit will all be eliminated this year.

Part of that assurance, she said, was the fact that Arizona was the host of the Super Bowl. Adding this to the average year should get the state back on track, Julius said.

But there is another thing her agency has to deal with now that could affect people’s willingness to visit.

Knowing that Arizona’s summers are hot, the national media seems to be paying particular attention to the records being set, such as the number of daily highs and days in a row when the thermometer stays above 110 degrees Celsius, as well as the number of nights Mercury does not drop below 90 degrees Celsius.

“It’s disturbing,” she said.

But Julius, who attended last week’s conference focused on climate change, said it’s important to remember that Arizona isn’t the only state affected.

“Europe is burning now, too,” she said.

“It’s crazy, but it’s something we all have to adapt to and figure out how to deal with,” Urias said.

But despite the national attention to the triple-digit numbers, she said she doesn’t think it will do long-term damage to the message that people should visit Arizona.

It starts with her agency focusing the message on the fact that the state isn’t just the Phoenix area buzzing the nightly news, she said. There is Flagstaff and the rest of northern Arizona.

“We run a lot of campaigns to help advertise these areas,” she said, and the state also provides direct subsidies for local communities to do their own advertising, Julius said.

“They know their market. They know who’s coming to Arizona and who’s already living here and trying to escape,” she said.

“People spend money away from the heat for, say, a few weeks, or a week, and that’s also important,” Urias said.

Julius, meanwhile, said her agency wasted no money convincing people in the rest of the country that they should visit the desert in the summer.

“I don’t train too hard in Phoenix in the summer,” she says. “

But agency spokesman Josh Coddington said spending to promote Arizona won’t completely dry up in the summer.

“We also want to at least keep in touch with them or at least have a presence because summer is over and people are going to travel,” he said.

“We want to stay in people’s minds because if they’re looking for a vacation and they don’t see an ad for Arizona, they might see someone else’s ad,” Coddington said.

A new report shows that a large part of the backdrop for tourist numbers over the past few years has been that spending, especially by international tourists, has been hit hard during the pandemic, plummeting to just 10% of pre-corona figures in 2020. Despite some recovery, it still accounts for only 9% of total spending.

Among foreign visitors to Japan, Mexico and Canada were the most popular, followed by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Julius said one of the biggest losses was to travelers from China, especially because of the pandemic. But she said she is optimistic that she will definitely return.

“We’re all trying to stay present and make sure we’re open here and welcoming them, but we’re clearly lagging behind,” Urias said.

The new coronavirus may not be the threat it once was.

But in some ways it has been replaced by the current frosty political relationship between the United States and China. Urias said he wants to avoid that.

“Tourism efforts really had to stay out of the fray,” says Urias, but even then, it’s often difficult to keep the issues separate, he said.

“I don’t think this will prevent Chinese tourists from visiting the United States, or at least I hope not,” she said.

However, preparations are being made to address such issues.

“We are definitely looking at Asia and other emerging markets. We are looking at the Indian market, South Korea and Japan,” said Julius.

And the state is actively working to attract tourists from Australia.

However, the largest share of tourism revenue comes from domestic audiences.

About 30% of those visitors were from Arizona themselves looking for a vacation close to home, and the rest were from other 49 states.

Among them, Californians accounted for the largest share by far. They were followed by Texas residents, New Yorkers, Florida and Colorado residents.

Julius said the state is actively promoting Arizona in certain target markets, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Dallas.

So where has all the money gone?

Hotels, motels and short-term rentals accounted for the largest share at about $6.1 billion, according to the report. But dining out wasn’t far behind at just under $6 billion.

Still, tourists didn’t necessarily head to restaurants. Another $1.2 billion was spent in grocery stores.

An additional $4.4 billion was spent on local transportation such as car rentals and gasoline, $2.7 billion was spent on entertainment and recreation and retail sales, and another $3.1 billion was added when souvenirs and other items were considered.

And all of that, in turn, created taxes. Tourists poured $2.4 billion into state and local coffers in 2022, according to the report.