Rochester tourism generated $1.1B in economic activity last year, new report finds
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Tourism in Rochester generated more than $1.1 billion in economic activity last year, according to a new report from University of Minnesota Extension.
Bill Von Bank, VP of marketing and communications for Experience Rochester, the city’s tourism booster, said he wasn’t surprised that Rochester showed such strong tourism numbers.
Rochester is well known as a destination for Mayo Clinic patients from around the region, state, nation and world. And the city is in the midst of a 20-year, $5.6 billion Destination Medical Center redevelopment project to make Rochester even more attractive to the patients, families and other visitors who come to Mayo Clinic from all over the world.
“Rochester is Minnesota's third largest city,” Von Bank said. “It is an economic hub in southeastern Minnesota. It's home to one of the world's best hospitals. You start to layer on the fact that we're also a convention city. We compete for conventions around the Midwest, including with the Minneapolis Convention Center, in Duluth, and Sioux Falls and Des Moines. And then you stack on top of that that we have a lot of sports tournaments going on in our community. It makes a lot of sense — Rochester is a regional economic hub for Minnesota.”
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Olmsted County, home to Rochester, generated more economic impact from tourism than any county in greater Minnesota, according to the state’s 2024 Visitor Economy Report. The only other counties across the state that generated more than $1 billion in economic activity were Hennepin, Ramsey and Dakota counties in the Twin Cities and St. Louis County, home to Duluth.
Von Bank said Experience Rochester commissioned the Rochester economic impact report from the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community and Vitality to examine the economic contributions of tourism-related industries, including restaurants, hotels, recreation, retail, entertainment and cultural attractions.
It’s the first of its kind as far as he can tell, and he hopes to use the report as an economic baseline to guide development decisions down the road.
According to the study, restaurants and bars are Rochester’s largest tourism-related employment sector, with approximately 3,100 jobs supported by visitor spending.
But Von Bank said he was struck by Rochester’s high concentration of hotels and accommodations and the labor that powers it. In 2025, Rochester had 1.17 times as many hotel and lodging workers as the national average.
“We have a lot of hotels,” Von Bank said. “We have a lot of rooms — over 6,200 rooms in Rochester to accommodate the medical visits, the convention visits, the sports visits and leisure travelers. So we punch above our weight there.”
While health care visits drive tourism, Von Bank wants to remind Minnesotans that there are other reasons to visit Rochester.
“Rochester is a great day trip,” Von Bank said. “Our hospitality scene is amazing, and we have some really top rated restaurants in Rochester — a lot of those homegrown. We’re very proud of Rochester.”
