Tourism
Tourism in metropolitan Detroit is an important economic factor, comprising nine percent of the area's two million jobs. About 15.9 million people visit the area annually spending an estimated $4.8 B. Besides casino gaming, the region's leading attraction is The Henry Ford, America's largest indoor-outdoor museum complex. The Detroit International Riverfront links the Renaissance Center to a series of venues, parks, restaurants, and hotels by a riverfront walkway.
The region hosts large multi-day events with crowds of hundreds of thousands to over three million people for annual events such as the Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, the North American International Auto Show, and the Motown Winter Blast on Campus Martius Park. The city's Midtown and New Center areas anchored by Wayne State University attract millions of visitors each year to its museums and cultural centers; for example, the Detroit Festival of the Arts in Midtown draws about 350,000 people. Mall developers consider the metro area's Somerset Collection to be among the nation's top privately held mall properties with 2004 gross annual sales of about $600 M and sales per square foot at $620 compared to the national average of $341.
The area has hosted several major sporting events such as Super Bowl XL; in fact, Detroit is the only northern city to have hosted two Super Bowls. Ford Field hosted the 2009 NCAA Final Four; in April 2007 it hosted WrestleMania 23. Major League Baseball's 2005 All-Star Game was held at Comerica Park, as were 2006 World Series games due to the Detroit Tigers success. Metro Detroit is one of thirteen U.S. cities with teams from four major sports.
The area's 24,000-acre (97 km2) network of Huron-Clinton Metroparks receives about nine million visitors annually. About 5.9 million people live in the Windsor-Detroit region, making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in North America. An estimated 46 million people live within a 300-mile (480 km) radius of Metro Detroit. Thus, the metro area has many opportunities for growth in tourism with great potential for development and expansion. The region's abundance of natural lakes and coastal landscape present investment potential for beachfront resorts and luxury high rise condominiums. In addition, there is the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge which is the only international wildlife preserve in North America, uniquely located in the heart of a major metropolitan area. The refuge includes islands, coastal wetlands, marshes, shoals, and waterfront lands along 48 miles (77 km) of the Detroit River and Western Lake Erie shoreline.
The city of Detroit functions as an entertainment hub for the entire region, as casino resorts, major sports venues, and theatre district increase development prospects for new retail. Detroit is the largest American city and metropolitan region to offer casino resort hotels. The MGM Grand Detroit (2007), Motor City Casino (2008), Caesars Windsor (2007), and Greektown Casino (2008) comprise the regions four major casino resorts.
Movie studios in metro area help to establish the state as a legitimate contender in the 12-month-a-year film business. Motown Motion Picture Studios (2009) with 535,000 square feet (49,700 m2) will produce movies at the Pontiac Centerpoint Business Campus for a film industry expected to employ over 4,000 people in the metro area.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Metropolitan Detroit
Famous quotes containing the word tourism:
“In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.”
—Robert Runcie (b. 1921)