SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) — In 2024 South Dakota saw an all-time record of visitors to South Dakota, the Department of Tourism secretary Jim Hagen highlighted the numbers for the Joint Committee on Appropriations on Thursday.

According to the report, in 2024, South Dakota saw 14.9 million visitors (a 1.4% overall increase) with visitor spending at $5.09 billion (a 2.8% overall increase), 58,824 jobs supported by tourism, $2.2 billion in household income generated for South Dakotans, and $399 million generated in state and local tax revenue.

Secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tourism, James Hagen, they now have the ability to predict how visitation will be throughout the year.

“We look by season, mainly through hotel bookings, but this isn’t an exact science. I mean sometimes these surveys can be a little bit of a guess, but we want to do our very best to provide our industry with a forecast to say this is what the next 45 days are looking like,” said Hagen.

The regions that generate the most out-of-state visitors include Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Chicago, Colorado, Denver the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Kansas City.

“If we see visitation looks like it’s trending down, we can adjust our message to hopefully inspire more visitors to come to the state and it allows our partners to say, hey, if that’s what we’re seeing maybe we can get out there and offer some, some value in enticements to visitors,” said Hagen.

Below is a forecast from the South Dakota Department of Tourism for visitation for the first 3 months of 2025, compared to previous years.

The department does not receive any general fund money. It is funded through the tourism promotion tax, Deadwood Gaming money and in the past few years it has received federal COVID-19 relief or ARPA money. The tourism’s planned budget is $35,882,626 for the fiscal year 2026. With more than $10 million in federal funds.

Hagen spoke on how the Department of Tourism has been using its ARPA funds.

“So we’ve been dispersing that over a four year period, that will come to an end in 2026 that’s been about 8.75 million annually,” Hagan said. “We have always treated this as one time money, never counting on it to be any more than what it was over just a four year period.”

Senator Glen Vilhauer asked if the programs funded by ARPA dollars will see a dramatic drop off after 2026.

Hagen responded saying the money has been a luxury but they have always known it was temporary funding.

“We’re gonna work with the funds that we have to and promote the state just as hard as we always have whether we have additional money or not,” Hagen said. “It’s hard to say, I don’t have a good answer for you, but I would just say given the effectiveness of our campaigns. I’m confident that even if we see a little bit of a drop with our hard work we can, we can make it up.”

Hagen also presented the department’s newest project the Destination Development Program.

“The whole goal of this program is to focus on rural tourism development,” Hagen said. “It’ll focus on rural communities now by rural we mean 30,000 people and below, we get pretty small pretty quickly in the state as we know, but 30,000 people and below, it’s gonna be geared to those communities and businesses within those communities.”

According to SD Tourism’s website, the program will focus on expanding tourism opportunities across the state that enhance local economies, support businesses, and attract visitors to diverse destinations offering new, authentic tourism products, experiences, and services.

“Part of our goal is to get those visitors to other points in the Black Hills other than the Crazy Horse Memorials or the Mount Rushmores,” Hagen said. “So they’re experiencing more of the hills so that’s a huge part of getting them dispersed, but again, not just the Black Hills. Let’s get them out throughout the entire state and not just in the summer.”



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