Cali Jermier, 46, and her 23-year-old son Bryce Jermier, and his dog, Cash, pose for a photo taken by another tourist at Falls Park in Sioux Falls on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. The Jermiers, who hail from Iowa, enjoy the mix of urban and rural offerings available in the East River tourism market. (Photo: Bart Pfankuch / South Dakota News Watch)
LAKE KAMPESKA, S.D. (South Dakota News Watch)– As they sat in comfy lawn chairs and sipped cold sodas in a campsite along this lake’s shoreline, Cheryl and Mark Okeson didn’t look like or feel like trend-setters within the South Dakota tourism industry.
And yet, without realizing it, the couple from Ortonville, Minnesota, perfectly represented a recent shift in how and where visitors to the Rushmore State spend their time and money while on vacation.
The retirees have enjoyed previous visits to the Black Hills region, long the powerhouse in attracting tourist visits and spending in the state. But for the past few years, they have instead decided to visit Watertown, in the northeast corner of the state, for what they said is a quieter, slower-paced vacation that still offers some urban amenities.
“We’ve camped in the Black Hills many, many times, and it’s just so many people and a lot of this and that going on,” Cheryl Okeson said in early August as she sat with her husband and dog in their campsite in Stoke-Thomas Lake City Park. “This is just more relaxed and more laid back, and that’s why we like coming here.”
While visiting Watertown, the Okesons were able to easily land a campsite right on the shores of picturesque Lake Kampeska. And they were also in close proximity to unique restaurants and cultural sites like the Redlin Art Center and the Bramble Park Zoo.
The Okesons are far from alone, however, in their new desire to consider East River destinations as prime vacation options.
The Black Hills and Badlands region remains a hot spot for visitor spending, as it has for most of the past century. But in 2022 and again last year, the Southeast tourism market flipped the traditional script and generated greater tourism revenue than the west, with the Glacial Lakes and Prairies region also seeing strong growth.
State data show that in 2022, the Black Hills and Badlands region took in $1.81 billion in tourism revenue, slightly less than the $1.86 billion generated in the Southeast region that year. In 2023, the southeast region again topped its West River counterpart to the tune of $1.96 billion compared to $1.92 billion. The Glacial Lakes and Prairies saw $699 million in 2023 revenues, while the Missouri River region had $386 million.
“What’s good for West River is good for East River and vice versa, so at the end of the day, we kind of laugh about it.” said Teri Schmidt, CEO of Experience Sioux Falls..
That sentiment is shared by Michelle Thomson, CEO of the Black Hills & Badlands Tourism Association, who said she is glad to see other regions of the state performing so well.
“I think it’s great because it’s an effort that the four regions are working hard on together,” Thomson said.
The new sense of harmony appears to be working well as the state saw a nearly 5% overall increase in tourism spending in 2023 compared to the year prior, with all four designated regions seeing revenue increases of 3% to 6%.
Statewide, South Dakota saw $4.73 billion in tourism spending in 2022 with a jump to $4.96 billion in 2023. That year, the latest for which data are complete, 14.7 million visitors came to South Dakota, producing a total economic impact of $8 billion, fueling almost 58,000 jobs and generating $384 million in state and local taxes.
“The one thing I love about our industry is that really, over the last 10 years, this industry is unified like I haven’t seen it before,” said South Dakota Secretary of Tourism Jim Hagen.
The Southeast tourism market is evolving quickly, Schmidt said, and developing into a destination for foodies, shoppers and people who come for a steady line-up of cultural, sporting and musical events.
“Events are what draw people because it’s something new all the time,” she said.
The ability to experience urban amenities in a vibrant, growing city is part of why Iowan Cali Jermier visited Sioux Falls in early August. Jermier, who hails from a Des Moines suburb, was at Falls Park with her son, Bryce Jermier, who has since moved to Sioux Falls.
And while they have visited South Dakota before, sometimes to hunt pheasants, Cali Jermier said she likes how the city has grown but still maintained a freshness and friendliness.
“Sioux Falls has just enough of everything, but not the craziness of a big, big city,” she said. “We like to have a little bit of the city and then you can go nearby to get the quiet.”
A bit flat, but still strong so far in 2024
Hagen said he expects 2024 will pan out as a year with relatively flat visitor counts but slightly higher revenues due to what he terms as “a return to normal.” Hagen said South Dakota saw very strong tourism activity during and since the pandemic, a time when the state and its business community remained mostly open while other states took a more conservative approach to the virus that limited tourism opportunities.
Now, he said, other states are fully open again, which has somewhat diluted the pool of potential visitors to South Dakota.
Hagen and other tourism experts said they have seen generally reduced visitor counts in 2024 and slightly shorter stays but overall higher spending. From January to June, for instance, hotel \occupancy was down slightly across the state, but revenues were up almost 6% over the same period in 2023.
Thomson said she remains bullish for the coming months as surveys have shown that Americans are still excited about exploring new places.
“Traveler sentiment is pretty high right now, and people are still optimistic about travel,” she said.
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