Minnesota Meltdown: Warm Winter Makes for Tourism Season Bust

(KNSI) — Despite the recent snowfall, experts say the winter tourism season is already a dud.

Minnesota’s reputation for fun this time of year took a hit thanks to record warm weather turning usual snowfall to rain, melting away what little snowpack we had, and weakening ice on lakes.

The University of Minnesota Director of the Tourism Center, Xinyi Qian, told KNSI News it’s hurting big and small cities. “It definitely affects those destinations or communities that rely pretty heavily on snow and ice activities during the winter season.”

They have reports of extremely low booking rates for lodging on the ever popular year round destination North Shore, but Grand Rapids and Lake Itasca are also seeing a drop. She says that has a trickledown effect on everything from rental businesses to restaurants. Qian says that’s going to impact the tax base across the state. “When we do not have these businesses and income coming in as revenue, we do not have a sales tax, and we do not have a lodging tax. So eventually it will influence the bottom line,” before adding it’s too soon to see how big of an impact the warm winter has been on Minnesota.

The silver lining could be an early and warm spring, allowing the summer tourism season to start early.

According to Explore Minnesota, tourism is a $22.8 billion industry, with at least a third coming in the winter.

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