With Memorial Day and the summer travel season just around the corner, national research is reporting record optimism for domestic leisure travel within the US. This should be good news for the Maine tourism industry, which has seen an annual average increase in visitation of approximately 6% over the past five years.

According to an April 2017 report by Destination Analysts on leisure travel, approximately 40% of Americans in Maine’s key travel markets (New England and the Mid-Atlantic) say they expect to travel more for leisure in the next year over 2016.

And the U.S. Travel Barometer for March 2017 showed that 76.3% of lodging searches by U.S. residents were to locations within the United States. 

Here's to a great season!

The full 2016 Visitor Tracking Research Annual Report for Maine is now available online at VisitMaine.com.  

Some key takeaways:

-          Maine experienced strong year-over-year growth in tourism-related visitation estimates again in 2016, continuing the upward trend of the past five years.

-         Families traveling with children continue to make up a large and desirable contingent of Maine visitors.

-         The majority of travel research and planning takes place on-line, with the use of social media as a resource for travel planning continuing to grow.

-         The proportion of visitors researching activities and attractions after arriving in Maine increased once again in 2016, with the majority of these using a mobile device. This provides an opportunity to provide real-time, on-site information to visitors that could help spread visitation to lesser known areas of the state.

The Live & Work in Maine website has been redesigned to include a job board to help Maine employers attract, retain and grow talent in Maine. Live & Work in Maine is proactively promoting the job board and jobs posted on it to key audiences that are more likely to consider a career in Maine: FMI or to post a job, click HERE.

Chimani, Inc., the Maine-based developer of free travel apps for national parks, has launched a new savings club for National Parks travelers called Chimani Perks. The membership program will collaborate with businesses to offer discounts on lodging, dining, tours, activities, retail shops, and gear in National Parks communities around Acadia, Arches, Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Olympic, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Zion.