Writer: Eleana Teran
2 min read 2022 — Minneapolis–St. Paul’s hospitality and tourism industries continue to recover and are expected to return to or exceed pre-pandemic levels over the next two years.
In an interview with Invest:, Michael Kapoulis, general manager of the Marquette Hotel, was confident in the hotel’s ability to meet its pre-pandemic goals as business travel and tourism come back. “2019 was one of the strongest years that the market has had. I think that in 2023 and into 2024, we will be able to reach that again,” said Kapoulis.
Lauren Bennett McGinty, state tourism director of Explore Minnesota, recognized the hardships endured by the hospitality and tourism industries over the last couple of years, but similarly to Kapoulis she is confident that travel demand is on the rise in part thanks to the “exciting events like the 2022 NCAA Women’s Final Four, 2022 MLS All-Star Game and 3M Open, and plenty of great ideas in place to build a bigger, bolder and brighter future for Minnesota’s tourism industry.”
McGinty also anticipates a return to pre-pandemic tourism levels by late 2023 or early 2024.
According to the Travel Indicators by Explore Minnesota, despite COVID-19’s estimated $14.1 billion loss in travel spending through May 2022, monthly improvement continues with only a 5% loss compared to 2019. In July 2022 the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area occupancy rate was 68.4%, 3.4 percentage points below the Top 25 market average of 71.8% occupancy, and 2.6 percentage points above the regional average for the North West Central region, which is defined as North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
The future looks bright, but there is still work to be done, especially as the rates of industry recovery continue to vary by business sector and region across the state. While 57% of firms in the metro area had revenue at or above 2019 levels, Downtown Minneapolis continues to have a slow return. As of Sept. 9 of this year, MPLS Downtown reported 57.7% hotel occupancy and 60% of seated dinners at MPLS restaurants compared to pre-pandemic levels. “The biggest obstacle right now is getting people back into the city of Minneapolis, getting people to come back to work in Downtown, and helping to improve people’s livelihood within the city post-COVID,” said Kapoulis.
To jump-start downtown’s recovery Kapoulis believes that, besides bringing people back to the office a couple of days a week, the area needs additional events, including more concerts and sporting events. “The Minnesota Twins are doing well right now and we continue to see more and more fans coming back Downtown to support their teams. The final piece of the puzzle is group and citywide conferences, and we’re starting to see more people coming back to the convention center,” he said.
