Staff presented the 2023 Year End Report for Hastings County’s Economic and Tourism Development Services at Tuesday’s meeting of the Planning and Development Committee.
The report showed a $1.5 million investment by business owners in startup or expansion costs last year including the opening of 17 new businesses and six others expanding.
There was $181.5 million worth of construction activity in 2023, a 119% increase over 2019.
When it comes to tourism, there were almost 766,000 overnight visitors with the average stay being three nights.
Money spent at retail, travel & entertainment, and service businesses in all 14 member municipalities was an estimated $156.2 million in 2023, a 10% increase from 2022 and a 50% increase over pre-pandemic 2019.
The report also showed that more than 510,000 people were reached through online marketing.
In addition, staff spent a significant amount of time in 2023 on the development of the new Hastings County website which offers information and online tools to help prospective entrepreneurs and existing businesses find up-to-date information on statistics and data, financial supports and an interactive property and building search tool.
See the entire report here.
