Louisiana Tourism Achieves Record-Breaking Year

Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne announced today that 2013 was a record-breaking year for the tourism industry in Louisiana.

He said The Bayou State attracted 27.3 million visitors, which is a 4 percent increase over 2012.

"$10.8 billion was spent by those visitors, generating $807 million dollars in tax revenue for the state of Louisiana," said Dardenne.

Dardenne said this money was generated through domestic and international visitors and represents a more than 34-to-1 return on investment of state funding.

"For every dollar we spend, we're going to bring $34 to the people of Louisiana," said Dardenne. "We are an appropriate investment for Louisiana that's going to pay dividends for the people of this state, and these numbers just prove that."

Dardenne said visits to the state's website LouisianaTravel.com went up by more than 32 percent last year, with 1.8 million unique visitors.

He said more than 210,000 Louisianians are employed thanks to the travel and tourism industry, making it the fifth largest employment sector in the state.

"So as we often say, hospitality and tourism is big business for Louisiana," Dardenne said.