Industry Ink: Phyllis Stark, Banner Music, Nashville International Visitor Rankings

Pictured (L-R): Daniel and Camilla Kleindienst, Alex Dooley, James Robert Webb, and Karl Braun.

Nashville Gains Greatest Increase in Popularity Among International Visitors

Nashville leads the U.S. as the city gaining the largest increase in interest from travelers outside the U.S., based on searches on TripAdvisor. Music City topped the chart with a 38 percent year-over-year increase in interest.

“People all over the world are hearing about Nashville and looking at making a visit to Music City,” Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said. “Our hospitality community has worked extremely hard for many years to expand our reach beyond the United States, and having a TV show named for and set in our city has broadcast Nashville’s name far and wide. Thanks to our live music scene, the spirit of creativity that permeates the city, our parks and greenways, our growing list of first-rate restaurants and iconic attractions such as Ryman Auditorium, The Hermitage, the Nashville Zoo and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the word is out about Nashville.”

The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp (NCVC) estimates that five percent to seven percent of overnight visitors in Nashville are from outside the country. From 2013 to 2014, Nashville saw a 10 percent increase in international visitation, according to the Global Cities Travel report by Oxford Economics.

International visitors are also traveling to Music City to attend some of the city’s largest music-related events. At the CMA Fest this past June, 10.3 percent of attendees were international visitors. At the Music City July 4^th: Let Freedom Sing! event earlier this year, 5.6 percent came from other countries. And the Jack Daniel’s Bash on Broadway: New Year’s Eve in Music City in 2014 saw 7.7 percent of attendees come from abroad.