A Snapshot of Cultural & Heritage Tourism

• Eighty-one percent of the 146.4 million U.S. adults who took a trip of 50 miles or more away from home in the past year can be considered cultural and heritage tourists. Compared to other travelers, cultural and heritage tourists:
  
• Spend more: $623 vs. $457
• Use a hotel, motel or B&B: 62 percent vs. 55 percent
• Are more likely to spend $1,000+/-: 19 percent vs. 12 percent
• Travel longer: 5.2 nights vs. 3.4 nights
• Historic/cultural travel volume is up 13 percent from 1996, increasing from 192.4 million person-trips to 216.8 million person-trips in 2002.
• The demographic profile of the cultural heritage travel segment today is younger, wealthier, more educated and more technologically savvy when compared to those surveyed in 1996.
• 35.3 million adults say that a specific arts, cultural or heritage event or activity influenced their choice of destination.

Source: Travel Industry Association of America and Smithsonian Magazine, The Historic/Cultural Traveler, 2003 Edition.