Does Columbus, Ohio Really Have 50 Million Visitors?

In May, Experience Columbus released its visitor data for 2023: It touted 51.2 million visitors to the region — an all-time record, the destination marketing organization for Ohio’s largest city said.

It's a stunning claim and would mean that Columbus had the same amount of visitors as much larger cities.  

“Absolutely incredible that this consulting firm paid by the city is saying more visitors came to Columbus than Chicago last year. This would be 1 out of 6 Americans visiting Columbus,” wrote Max Littman, a special investigations editor for The Rooster, an Ohiocentric blog focused on Columbus, on X.

All destinations release similar data, but there’s no standard measure for what a visitor is. For tourism boards, the metric is key: Politicians look at visitor numbers – along with other data that shows economic impact – when determining how much money to allocate to tourism promotion.

One tourism board consultant told us they have had to bend their definition of a visitor to satisfy a client.  

”You can’t go to a client and say forget about half of your [visitor] spending because we define travel as 50 miles and half your spending comes from people [traveling] less than 20 miles,” said the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s mainly a tool in a toolbox of data that is used to justify funding and the political benefits of having a marketing organization.”

Here are some of the assumptions that go into Experience Columbus' number:

Total trips: If you visit your mom for Mother’s Day and then again for July 4, you’re counted twice – it’s “not the unique number of visitors,” according to Brian Ross, president and CEO of Experience Columbus. “Person trips”: If you bring your spouse and two children on one of the visits, that’s four “person trips,” said Amir Eylon, CEO and president of Longwoods International, the consultants hired by Experience Columbus.  Duration: There’s no minimum amount of time you need to stay to count as a visitor. I