Tourist travel spending was 102 BILLION in 2011. The boondoggle mime is a teabagger talking point. Better infrastructure equals more visitors, equals greater revenues, for both private and public sectors.
Here is a cut and paste from the California Tourism Industry Website;
http://industry.visitcalifornia.com/Research/California-Statistics-and-Trends/
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DOMESTIC TRAVEL TO CALIFORNIA
California was the destination for 199 million domestic person-trips in 2010. A person-trip is defined as a visitor trip made to a specific location and does not tally multiple stops within the specified location on a single trip. Whereas in previous years, Visit California has reported domestic travel in person-stays, which is defined as a visitor trip made to a specific locale within the state, thus allowing a single person to be counted multiple times on a single trip.
73% of California's domestic leisure visitors in 2010 were residents of California. Top states for in-bound leisure travel were Arizona (3.6%), Nevada (2.9%), Texas (2.0%), Oregon (1.6%), Washington (1.6%) and New York (1.5%).
Full report: 2010 Domestic Travel to California, Source: TNS TravelsAmerica, 2010
Full year-end reports on travel to and within California by California residents and out-of-state residents. Includes visitor volumes (for years 2004-2009), trip characteristics, visitor origins and demographics. These reports have been compiled by D.K. Shifflet & Associates Ltd.
Prior Years:
2009 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004
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INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL TO CALIFORNIA
13.6 million international visitors traveled to California in 2010. Approximately 5.7 million were from overseas origins, 6.6 million were from Mexico and 1.4 million were from Canada.
California's top overseas markets in 2010 were the United Kingdom (682,000), Japan (545,000), Australia (502,000), China (401,000) South Korea (390,000), Germany (388,000), France (383,000), and India (184,000).
Full report: Overseas and Mexican Visitors to California, 2010 (Full Report ) by CIC Research Inc., October 2011.
Full year-end reports detailing visitor profiles and trip characteristics of travel to California from top overseas markets and for Mexican air travelers.
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