Visitor Spending Generates Nearly $2 Billion in Economic Impact for Long Beach

(Long Beach, California – December 2, 2024) Visitors to Long Beach generate $1.97 billion in economic impact – a $213 million increase over 2018, according to a new report by Long Beach-based Kleinhenz Economics. Visit Long Beach commissioned the report, which was authored by Dr. Robert Kleinhenz and Megan Anaya, economists and lecturers based at California State University, Long Beach. The economists concentrated on activity related to overnight and out-of-area day visitors to the city, which include both business visitors and tourists.

Visitor spending in Long Beach supports local businesses, creates jobs and labor income, and boosts city coffers that fund critical services. Highlights from the report – the first conducted since 2018 – include the following.

In 2023, visitor spending generated:
- 14,600 jobs
- $785 million in labor income (with an average salary of $53,850)
- $359 million in overall tax revenues
- $171 million in state and local tax revenues
- $38.2 million in transient occupancy tax (hotel tax paid by overnight visitors)

Long Beach’s tourism industry rebound is outpacing the rest of Los Angeles County, with significantly larger year-over-year increases in hotel and airport revenues, as well as sales tax dollars.

“Long Beach continues to outperform competitive markets due in part to the efforts of Meet Long Beach, the agency tasked with selling the city as a destination for conventions and meetings,” said Steve Goodling, President & CEO of Meet Long Beach (MeetLB) and Visit Long Beach (VisitLB). “In addition to outpacing L.A. County hotel revenue, data from Smith Travel Research shows that Long Beach outpaced San Diego in revenue per available room (the metric hotels use to measure earnings) in 2023, a trend that continued for much of 2024.”

Impacts of Convention Business on Visitor Spending

According to Goodling, the strength of the tourism sector in Long Beach is in great part due to business at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, in addition to attractions such as the Queen Mary and Aquarium of the Pacific, and annual events such as the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and various music festivals.

“In 2013, we set out to modernize Convention Center venues with an eye toward the future. Inspired by the uniquely collaborative, person-centered design of TED conferences in Long Beach, we partnered with the City of Long Beach and ASM Global (then known as SMG) to transform the facility to better facilitate human connection and appeal to a broader base of clientele,” said Goodling. “Over the past 10 years, the center has transformed into a boutique conference venue with in-house assets that offer immense cost savings to meeting planners and set us apart from the competition.”

Goodling noted that the city’s sharp increase in transient occupancy tax collections can be traced back to these efforts, which have bolstered MeetLB’s ability to sell the Convention Center to associations, government agencies and corporations for their annual meetings and special events.

Significant upgrades to the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center began with a $10 million investment in the Long Beach Arena in 2013. Now dubbed the Pacific Ballroom, the venue is equipped with an overhead theatrical rigging and lighting system that enables meeting planners to design events of many sizes and configurations, with in house furnishings and design elements included.

In 2023, Kleinhenz conducted a study of convention business booked due to use of the Pacific Ballroom, and found that the venue alone generated $427 million in impact over a 10-year period.

In total, the City of Long Beach has invested more than $85 million in renovating the center’s spaces and infrastructure. Spaces like the Terrace Theater Plaza and The Cove (a transformed underpass beneath the Plaza) are fully outfitted with rigging systems, lighting, furnishings and decor, saving event planners hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment rentals and labor. Recent investments have also upgraded critical systems, such as the facility’s HVAC.

These refurbishments and investments have received numerous accolades and recognitions from the meetings industry. Notably, for 7 years running, the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center has taken home the Gold award for “Best in the Far West” in the industry’s Stella Awards, voted upon by meeting planners who read Successful Meetings and Meetings & Conventions magazines.

And for 8 years running, Meet Long Beach (formerly the Long Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau), has taken home the Gold award for “Best in the Far West” in the industry’s Stella Awards. Long Beach is the only destination in any region of the U.S. to have won Gold more than three years running.

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About Visit Long Beach: Visit Long Beach markets and promotes the City of Long Beach as a destination for leisure travel, conventions and events. Founded in 1982 as a nonprofit corporation, the organization employs a myriad of strategies to publicize and market the city, including traditional advertising, content marketing, media relations, and robust convention client services. Visit Long Beach has a membership program for local businesses, providing them with marketing and publicity services including web listings, social media promotions, and exposure to convention clients.

About Meet Long Beach: Meet Long Beach sells and markets the City of Long Beach as a destination for conventions, meetings and events. Founded by local business people in 2023 as a nonprofit corporation, Meet Long Beach employs a team of seasoned sales professionals placed in key markets throughout the United States, as well as administrative and support staff. The sales team pursues major convention business for the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center with the goal of generating overnight hotel stays.