Wenatchee Valley tourism hits $441 million as year-round visits grow

WENATCHEE — Tourism generated an estimated $441 million in economic impact across Wenatchee and East Wenatchee in 2025, with record hotel demand reflecting a mix of visitors arriving for outdoor recreation, conventions, business, sports and cultural attractions.

Ashley Sinner, director of Visit Wenatchee operations, presented the figures to the Wenatchee City Council Sept. 24, describing the valley as a year-round destination whose tourism business extends well beyond its busiest festivals and tournament weekends.

“2025 was our best year on record,” Sinner said.

The two cities recorded 4.4 million destination visits and more than 453,000 hotel room nights sold, according to her presentation. Average hotel occupancy reached 63.2%, compared with 60% in 2022, while room nights sold increased by nearly 37,000 over that period.

Sinner said tracking the number of rooms sold helps reveal growth that occupancy percentages alone can obscure. When new hotels add rooms to the market, maintaining a similar occupancy rate requires attracting more overnight business.

Average daily room rates reached $117.81 in 2025, peaking above $132 during the summer.

Together, room demand and rates influence lodging tax collections, although Sinner cautioned that they do not always move in the same direction. Hotels adjust prices according to what travelers are willing to pay, meaning revenue can increase even when occupancy declines.

As an example, she said July occupancy fell 2.2% from a year earlier while revenue increased 2.4%.

Sinner said the valley’s diverse economy can make tourism’s contribution less apparent than in communities where seasonal travel dominates business activity.

Leavenworth and Chelan feel disruptions such as winter storms, wildfire smoke or slow travel seasons more broadly, she said. Wenatchee’s hotels and restaurants also feel those effects, but they may be less evident to residents working in other industries.

The valley’s tourism demand comes from several sources: Mission Ridge, river access and trails; sports tournaments and venues; conventions; travel associated with technology and tree fruit businesses; wineries and cideries; festivals; and arts and cultural attractions.

“No single one of these drivers fills hotel rooms on their own,” Sinner said.

She emphasized that sports tourism is particularly visible because teams often reserve hotel room blocks, making their overnight stays easier to count. Visitors drawn by museums, scenery or cultural experiences usually arrive individually, making the reason for their stay harder to identify.

One of Visit Wenatchee’s strongest advertising campaigns in 2025 featured the Rocky Reach Discovery Center.

The September-through-October campaign generated 967,778 impressions and 16,676 clicks to the website, Sinner said, outperforming every other individual campaign the organization ran that year, including its festival advertising.

That response illustrated the potential of cultural attractions to draw visitors, she said, even when their hotel stays cannot be tracked as directly as tournament bookings.

Sinner also described the limits of some visitation estimates. In the presentation, visitors traveling from outside a 50-mile radius were classified as overnight visitors based on the assumption that they stayed somewhere in the valley. The tracking could not always confirm where they stayed or which businesses received their spending.

A more recent example of event tourism came from the Wenatchee 200 at the Wenatchee Valley Super Oval in May. Sinner said the event drew nearly 4,000 attendees, with 47% traveling from outside the 50-mile radius, and an estimated economic impact exceeding $560,000.

Visit Wenatchee promotes that range of attractions through digital advertising, billboards, video, audio and social media.

Its website recorded 371,000 visits and nearly 600,000 page views in 2025, with leading audiences in Washington, Oregon, California and British Columbia. Paid advertising generated nearly 70 million impressions and 273,000 clicks in return for less than $300,000 in spending.

Sinner said the organization’s current advertising targets include the Seattle metropolitan area and Tri-Cities, with opportunities to expand into Spokane and British Columbia. The new direct Portland flight also creates an opportunity to reach more Oregon travelers.

The marketing operation is funded entirely through lodging tax and tourism promotion area revenue. Sinner said Wenatchee lodging taxes account for 30% of Visit Wenatchee’s 2026 budget, while 62% comes from the city’s tourism promotion area assessment. East Wenatchee lodging tax revenue supplies the remaining share.

The tourism promotion area assessment is $2 per hotel room night sold in Wenatchee, she said, providing a funding source that grows directly with hotel demand.

Sinner connected tourism spending to benefits beyond the hospitality industry, including sales tax revenue supporting city services and lodging taxes helping pay the bond on the Wenatchee Convention Center.

Sinner said the valley’s range of attractions helps sustain tourism throughout the year.

“No single driver carries this valley alone,” she said. “That range is exactly why we’re a genuine year-round destination instead of a seasonal one.”

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media