Los Angeles welcomed 49.5 million visitors in 2025, generating $42.6 billion in local business sales and supporting more than 530,000 jobs across Los Angeles County, according to new data from the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board and Tourism Economics.
The numbers affirm tourism’s place among the region’s most powerful economic engines. They also reveal a more complicated story: Los Angeles entered its historic run of global sporting events from a position of strength, but not uninterrupted growth.
In 2024, Los Angeles welcomed approximately 50 million visitors, supported more than 543,000 tourism-related jobs and generated more than $45 billion in business sales. Compared with those figures, visitation declined approximately 1% in 2025, while business sales decreased by at least $2.4 billion. Tourism employment also finished below the previous year’s reported level, according to Los Angeles Tourism.
International visitation provides important context. Tourism Economics reported that Los Angeles welcomed 6.6 million international visitors in 2024 and 6.4 million in 2025, a 3% year-over-year decline. Yet Los Angeles outperformed the broader United States, where inbound international visitation fell 5.5% to 68.3 million travelers in 2025, according to the U.S. Travel Association. The comparison suggests that although Los Angeles was not immune to national travel headwinds, its global appeal helped soften their impact.
That relative resilience also underscores the importance of air connectivity and the arrival experience in maintaining Los Angeles’ competitiveness as a global destination. “This summer’s tournament brought the world to L.A., and Delta was proud to help make that journey possible for thousands of supporters traveling to experience one of the biggest sporting events on the planet,” said Scott Santoro, Vice President of Los Angeles and Sales West at Delta Air Lines. “Our Delta people worked hard to ensure customers could focus on what mattered most being part of an unforgettable moment.”
Santoro said the impact extended well beyond air travel and the matches themselves. “The tournament showcased L.A. on the world stage, driving tourism, supporting local businesses and reinforcing the city’s status as a premier global destination. It also offered a preview of what’s ahead as Los Angeles prepares to welcome the world again for the 2028 Summer Olympics.”
Even during that challenging year, visitors generated approximately $118 million in economic activity every day. Tourism contributed $305 million to the City’s General Fund and produced $3.4 billion in state and local tax revenue, helping save the average Los Angeles County household approximately $1,000 annually in taxes. The Los Angeles Convention Center also hosted 19 citywide conventions, welcoming more than 260,000 attendees and generating over 209,000 hotel room nights. More than 470 additional meetings and events produced another 254,000 room nights. “Despite a variety of headwinds impacting tourism nationally, LA’s Visitor Industry continues to be one of the largest contributors to our local economy,” LA Tourism President and CEO Adam Burke said. “Ensuring a sustainable future for this vital business sector is critical to the hundreds of thousands of Angelenos and the local businesses—including hundreds of small and diverse-owned businesses, whose livelihoods depend on the industry.”
The data arrives as Los Angeles moves from the 2026 FIFA World Cup toward Super Bowl LXI and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The opportunity is not simply to fill stadiums. It is to convert spectators into hotel guests, restaurant customers, transit riders, cultural participants and future visitors. The World Cup provided a live test. The tournament extended into beaches, parks, restaurants and neighborhood business districts through public transportation, fan zones, watch parties, cultural programming and sponsor activations stretching from Venice and Santa Monica to Inglewood and the San Fernando Valley.
Airbnb data illustrates the geographic and economic reach of that activity. In a study commissioned by Airbnb, Deloitte projected that spending by Airbnb guests in Los Angeles and nearby communities during the World Cup could generate approximately $183 million in business turnover, contribute $96 million to regional GDP, support 740 full-time-equivalent jobs and produce approximately $12 million in product-related tax revenue.
The benefits extended beyond accommodations. Deloitte projected $15 million in turnover for food and beverage businesses, $10 million for cultural activities, $9 million for transportation and $8 million for retail according to Deloitte’s Airbnb World Cup economic-impact study.
As the tournament unfolded, Airbnb reported that searches for Los Angeles stays increased 63% week over week ahead of the July 10 quarterfinal. The United Kingdom, Mexico and Canada were among the leading international origins for guests, while San Diego emerged as the top destination searched after Los Angeles, evidence that major events can generate visitor movement extending beyond one host city.
Tourism Economics data shared by Santa Monica Travel & Tourism provides another measure of how World Cup activity traveled beyond the stadium. During match days across the tournament’s first five weeks, Santa Monica hotels recorded a 3.7% year-over-year increase in occupancy, while average daily rates rose 42.1%. Revenue per available room—a key measure combining room rates and occupancy increased 47.3%, and total hotel revenue climbed 49.3%. Among the Los Angeles-area submarkets analyzed, Santa Monica posted the strongest hotel revenue growth, despite being approximately 12 miles from the stadium.
The results demonstrate how destinations can capture substantial event-related value without hosting a match themselves. Santa Monica paired its hotels and recognizable coastal attractions with six weeks of community programming, sponsor activations and public events culminating in Michelob’s Santa Monica Pier activation, COAST, creating additional reasons for visitors and residents to remain in the city. “Summer in Santa Monica and the World Cup delivered a great match,” said Misti Kerns, president and CEO of Santa Monica Travel & Tourism. “The city from our residents, partners and businesses prepared, adapted and seized the moment. Our collective goal is to keep that momentum going as we prepare for major events, including the Ocean Way Festival on our beach in September, Super Bowl LXI and welcoming the world to Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics.”
That momentum will soon face another test. The inaugural Ocean Way Festival, presented by Goldenvoice, will bring two days of music, food, wellness and beach culture to Santa Monica on September 26 and 27. The progression from World Cup activations to a major beachfront music festival and then Super Bowl and Olympic opportunities shows how event infrastructure, public-private partnerships and destination marketing can build upon one another rather than beginning again with every event.
Santa Monica’s performance reinforces a larger economic development lesson, a mega-event’s value should not be measured only at the stadium gate, but its reach depends on how effectively the region connects visitors with accommodations, transportation, cultural experiences and neighborhood businesses.
For Stephen Cheung, president and CEO of the Los Angeles County Economic Development (LAEDC) and World Trade Center Los Angeles, the region’s diversity must be treated as an economic advantage, not simply a marketing message. “Our diversity has always been our greatest economic strength,” Cheung said. “As we prepare to welcome the world for the World Cup, Super Bowl, and Olympics/Paralympics, our region must invest in the workers, entrepreneurs, and families who built what visitors will come here to see.”
Mega-events deliver their greatest value when they become catalysts for broader economic participation rather than isolated moments of entertainment. Hotels, short-term rentals, transportation, restaurants, cultural institutions and neighborhood businesses collectively create the visitor experience. Los Angeles’ expanding destination portfolio including LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries, Destination Crenshaw, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, West Harbor, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center and continuing modernization at LAX—strengthens that proposition.
The 2025 numbers are therefore neither an uncomplicated success story nor a prediction of decline, but a baseline. Los Angeles already knows how to capture global attention, now it's about transforming that attention into longer stays, stronger international visitation, wider regional spending and benefits that remain visible long after the final whistle.