Tourism is up in KOTA Territory - KOTA Territory News

With severe drought conditions throughout the state, it's a good thing tourism numbers are on the rise.

It seems people have been taking advantage of the Black Hills' beautiful parks and shopping this year because the tourism numbers are much higher than last year.

Wind Cave visitors are up 16%  and Mount Rushmore visitors are up by 13%.  In fact almost everywhere in the Black Hills there has been an increased numbers of tourist traveling and spending money except for some places in the southern hills.

There are still two more months of summer that need to be tallied up, and there is no sign of stopping the tourism gains.

"The Black Hills experience for a vacation is so genuine it's so real that families crave that," said Black Hills Badlands and Lakes President and CEO Nort Johnson.  "It's not always the distraction of a Disney World or a theme park that you want for your vacation. The Black Hills you can come and reconnect," he added.

Johnson also says that tourism is very good to the South Dakota taxpayers. It amounts to about $800 of tax relief per family each year.