by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 5:30 PM ET, Mon April 2, 2018
On the heels of one of the costliest tropical cyclones on record, which caused about $125 billion in damage, Houston is seeing an increase in tourism.
A report compiled by OmniTrak's TravelTrakAmerica and Travel Marketing Insights revealed that more than 21 million domestic and international tourists visited the city in 2017, according to the Houston Chronicle.
That figure represents a six percent increase over 2016 and brings the city closer to its goal of reaching 25 million visits by 2020.
According to the report, millennials were the top domestic visitors to Houston. And of the 18.3 million domestic visitors, 80 percent stayed overnight, while the remainder were day visitors.
In addition, about 73 percent of those domestic visitors were in the city for leisure activities, while about 15 percent arrived in Houston on business.
International visits also trended upward in 2017, rising 3.5 percent to 3.5 million. There was a 1.5 percent increase in visitors from Mexico in particular (which is in stark contrast to the nine percent decline in travel from Mexico to the U.S. overall.)
In the weeks and months after Hurricane Harvey struck the city last year destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and killing 49 people, many predicted a long, hard road ahead, particularly for the travel industry and the city's hotels.
The fourth-largest city in the U.S., Houston is also the nation's energy capital. Occupancy and room rates at Houston hotels, however, had been depressed for about three years leading up to the hurricane.
But by October, the city appeared to be making its way toward recovery.
Many of its biggest attractions had reopened including Space Center Houston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Galleria shopping center. In addition, the vast majority of hotels and restaurants returned to business by October.
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