Indianapolis tourism made a comeback in 2021

Indianapolis tourism experienced a comeback in 2021 following a year of pandemic event cancellations and delays.

Visit Indy delivered its annual State of Tourism to hundreds of local and tourism officials Tuesday.

President and CEO Leonard Hoops said it was a good year for the city.

"Starting with the fact that we had the entire March Madness in March and April, and had over 170,000 tickets sold during that period which got us off to a great start, but we also had a lot of our big shows come back in 2021, FDIC, the fire department folks, Gen Con," Hoops said.

Visit Indy worked with the local and state health departments to ensure safely protocols were in place during the events. Hoops remains optimistic that tourism will stay strong in 2022.

"We’ve got all those big shows that we got to come back in 2021 are back in 2022. In fact, I was just looking at the convention schedule and we have 50 different big events that will generate at least a thousand hotel room nights on any one peak given night," Hoops said.

The city anticipates at least $835 million in convention business in 2022.

Contact WFYI Morning Edition newscaster and reporter Taylor Bennett at tbennett@wfyi.org. Follow on Twitter: @TaylorB2213.