Nashville’s New Year’s Eve Sees Record Visitor Spending at $22.3 Million

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – New Year’s Eve in Nashville in 2017 set a record for direct visitor spending at $22.3 million, up from $17.2 million in 2016 and higher than the previous record of $22.2 million in 2015, the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp announced.

Jack Daniel’s Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville also saw a record percentage of international visitors, and visitors stayed longer, contributing to the growth in visitor spending.

Approximately 10 percent of attendees were international visitors. For the first time, Ontario, Canada was listed among the top 10 feeder states/provinces, which also included Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky, Alabama, Illinois, Ohio, California, Georgia and Virginia. As previously announced, approximately 100,000 attended the event.

Additional information about the 2017 event:

•             23,297 hotel rooms sold

•             82 percent of attendees were from out of town, up from 78 percent in 2016

•             3.5 nights was the average length of stay, up from 3 nights in 2016

•             64 percent were first-time visitors, up from 36 percent in 2016

•             14 percent stayed in home rentals, up from 8 percent in 2016

The New Year’s Eve event generated nearly $6 million in national and local advertising equivalency with 288 million national and local media impressions. Nashville was a featured location as part of CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen.”  The city was named the No. 1 destination in the USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Top 10 Best Place to Ring in the New Year travel contest.

Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville took place at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park and featured a Music Note Drop at midnight, a multi-genre concert lineup of Nashville-based talent and a 6 p.m. Nashville-time countdown to celebrate the New Year in the U.K. in support of the new British Airlines flight to London. Joining Urban on the lineup was CMA New Artist of the Year Maren Morris, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Cheap Trick, 2017 country music breakout artist Carly Pearce, R&B artist Jonny P, roots rockers Larkin Poe and the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The annual concert is free and open to the public.

The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp

The mission of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp is to maximize the economic contribution of the convention and tourism industry to the community by developing and marketing Nashville as a premier destination. Visit the NCVC’s website at www.visitmusiccity.com.

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