(Primghar)– An economic impact report issued in October by Iowa Tourism took one northwest Iowa by county by complete surprise. The numbers show visitor spending in O’Brien County increased by a whopping 18.7 percent in 2023 compared to 2022. Kiana Johnson is the Executive Director of the O’Brien County Economic Development Corporation which serves as the umbrella for O’Brien County Tourism. She says that compares to statewide growth of 5.1 percent over the same time…
“O’Brien county had the largest growth throughout the entire state of Iowa. Now we are not bringing in the largest amount of tourism revenue, but we had the largest growth, so that shows to us then that everything we’ve been doing, O’Brien County Tourism, our cities, our chambers, our conservation office, just by promoting what we have and growing awareness. We’ve exceeded the charts in state and local tax revenues but also in visitor spending. And we kind of what want to contribute most of that to our bloggers. Like I mentioned before we received two other grants over the years from the state of Iowa to bring our bloggers into O’Brien County and highlight those areas.”
She adds O’Brien County has a number of offerings that many people simply aren’t aware of…
“We have so many unique lodging facilities. We have some great trails. Just a lot of things to do, unique things. We still have a bowling alley, we still have a skating rink. We just have some fabulous places that we need to promote.”
As [KUOO] reported last week, the O’Brien County Economic Development Corporation was recently awarded a state tourism grant to help promote agritourism in O’Brien County.
(This story is courtesy of fellow Community First Broadcasting station KUOO in Spirit Lake)
