Madison County second most-visited in Alabama in 2021

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — After racking in report income throughout 2021, Madison County now ranks because the 2nd most visited county in Alabama, in keeping with a brand new launch by the Alabama Tourism Division.

“We actually began selling the realm extra closely as a vacation spot for people inside our area,” Huntsville-Madison County Conference and Guests Bureau Vice President Charles Winters mentioned of the technique that turned out to be a giant money-maker within the aftermath of the pandemic.

Madison County acquired a complete of $1.7 billion generated from guests (up 6% from 2019) in keeping with the report, second solely to Baldwin County’s profitable earnings just like the beachfront communities of Orange Seaside and Gulf Shores.

The variety of jobs in journey and tourism Madison County in 2021 additionally jumped to greater than 21,000 after
falling to lower than 15,000 throughout 2020.

“High quality of life is useful,” Winters mentioned. “It has a lot of an affect on our residents, but it surely additionally transfers and serves as a discover to herald guests.”

It additionally serves as a money-saver for residents.

“9 %, which is what our present tax charge is, divided by the variety of households in Madison County, and also you provide you with barely over a thousand {dollars} per family in what they saved (somewhat than) had there not been guests come into the group and spend these funds.”

Nevertheless, Winters admits the bureau nonetheless has loads of work forward to make sure individuals will wish to keep coming again.

“Clearly infrastructure enhancements, highway and bridge enhancements, they’ll trigger some inconvenience for journey within the quick time period,” he mentioned. “However long run it actually helps with site visitors, site visitors move, and having the ability to accommodate the quantity of site visitors in Huntsville-Madison county. And we’re persevering with to develop.”