Tourism drove $8.8 billion into Toronto’s economy last year, the highest level of visitor spending ever recorded in the city, according to the year-end report Toronto’s Visitor Economy: 2024 Market Performance Highlights published by Destination Toronto. The 9 million overnight visitors to Toronto are the most since the pandemic, though still 600,000 fewer than the number of visitors welcomed in 2019.
“Toronto’s visitor economy is proving once again to be an engine for the city, drawing almost 9 billion dollars of new money into our economy from across Canada, across the border and around the world,” said Andrew Weir, president and CEO of Destination Toronto.
According to the data, the majority of visitors to Toronto in 2024 were Canadian at 6.32 million people. International visitors, including those from the U.S. U.K., and China, accounted for 2.68 million.
Major meetings and events (multi-day events with more than 1,000 attendees) brought nearly 250,000 visitors in 2024, including the NHL All-Star Game, Pediatric Academic Societies, World Water Congress and Exhibition, and MedTech Conference.
In 2025, major meetings and events are projected to draw 300,000 visitors, with attendees coming to the city for the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, American Bar Association Annual Meeting and more. In 2024, Destination Toronto and its partners secured new business that will bring more than 365,000 visitors in the coming years.
“Toronto is the most diverse city in the world—with hundreds of vibrant, thriving neighbourhoods. In 2024, we welcomed Taylor Swift, the NHL All-Star Game and of course every year, TIFF, the largest film festival in North America. With hundreds of conferences, events, festivals and visitors bringing almost $9 billion, tourism is enormously valuable for our city. Come visit Toronto!” said Mayor Olivia Chow.
