People spent even more money last year at Wake County’s hotels and restaurants, according to Visit Raleigh’s Wake County tourism report.

The report shows a 5.7% rise over 2023, with hotel and prepared food and beverage tax collections totaling $87.45 million for the best calendar year on record, according to Visit Raleigh.

Key takeaways:

• Hotel lodging tax collections totaled more than $41 million in 2024, up 7.7% over 2023.

• Prepared food and beverage tax collections totaled $44.6 million in 2024, up 4% over 2023.
• Visit Raleigh and the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance (GRSA) hosted 425 events, tournaments, conferences and festivals in 2024. Those events brought nearly 665,000 attendees to Wake County.
• Among them were the VisitRaleigh.com Showcase Series, which brought in a combined 72,250 attendees over four weekends in November and December, the NCAA College Cups (men’s and women’s) and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Aim Conference.
• Visit Raleigh and GRSA have already booked 476 future events, bringing more than 300,000 overnight stays to Wake County, a projected $220 million economic impact.