Start of the summer tourism season

Memorial Day doesn’t just mark the unofficial start of summer. It also begins a busy tourism season here on the Coast.
Over the weekend, visitors flocked to our beaches, restaurants, and other hot spots, taking in all South Mississippi has to offer. Those tourists mean an economic boost for the Coast, something our economy depends on.
From the turnout the past few days, the outlook is bright for the summer. Over the holiday weekend, officials at the Biloxi Visitors Center saw about four times more guests than they usually do. Biloxi Visitors Center Gift Shop Manager Mia Hannah said, “It was pretty busy. We usually see two to three hundred people and we had about 800 visitors Saturday and Sunday. Everyone loves to come and do a tour of our lighthouse which we do in the morning. They love our visitor’s center. They can get all the information on what’s going on in the city here, so usually this is a number one stop for everyone.”
In 2016, 6.2 million tourists visited the Coast, spending nearly $2 billion in South Mississippi.