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Myrtle Beach Tourism Statistics for November 2026
The Myrtle Beach area received an estimated 18.2 million visitors from within the US in 2024, 3.6% more than in 2023 but 11.6% fewer than in 2019. Visitors spent an estimated $13.2 billion, up 5.3%. In Horry County, travel supported 37,760 direct jobs in 2024, and Myrtle Beach International Airport recorded 1.74 million boardings in 2025, 8.0% fewer than in 2024.
How many people visit Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand, what they spend and what tourism is worth to Horry County, compiled from local estimates and official counts. Full sources are listed at the bottom of the page. Visitor and spending estimates are for 2024, the most recent year published, with airport, hotel and tax figures for 2025 where available.
Visitor numbers
Visitors to Myrtle Beach
The Myrtle Beach area received an estimated 18.2 million visitors in 2024, up 3.6% on 2023 (17.6 million). Numbers have recovered from the 2020 low of 12.8 million but remain 11.6% below the 2019 level of 20.6 million. Most visitors come from nearby states: North Carolina sends the most, followed by South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio.
View data table
| Period | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 20.6m | pre-pandemic |
| 2020 | 12.8m | pandemic |
| 2021 | 17.2m | |
| 2022 | 17.5m | |
| 2023 | 17.6m | |
| 2024 | 18.2m | +3.6% |
Estimates of person-stays (one person on one trip) by US residents, from a monthly national household travel survey. They include day trips and visits by South Carolina residents, and exclude international visitors. Origin states are ranked by share of visitors; no counts are published. No visitor estimate for 2025 has been published yet.
Visitor spending
What visitors spend in the Myrtle Beach area
Visitors spent an estimated $13.2 billion in the Myrtle Beach area in 2024, 5.3% more than in 2023 and 16.2% more than in 2019. Overnight leisure visitors accounted for $12.2 billion, or 92.3% of the total. A separate card-spending estimate puts spending by international visitors at $290 million.
View data table
| Period | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $11.3bn | pre-pandemic |
| 2020 | $7.3bn | pandemic |
| 2021 | $10.8bn | |
| 2022 | $12.0bn | |
| 2023 | $12.5bn | |
| 2024 | $13.2bn | +5.3% |
Direct spending by US-resident visitors, in nominal dollars, from the same household survey as the visitor estimates. Part of the growth since 2019 is price inflation. The county travel-impact model for Horry County uses a different method and gives a lower figure ($6.2 billion in direct travel spending in 2024), so the two are not comparable.
Visitor mix
Who visits Myrtle Beach
Myrtle Beach is mainly an overnight leisure destination. Of the 18.2 million visitors in 2024, 15.5 million (84.9%) came on overnight leisure trips, up 3.0% on 2023. The rest were day trips, business trips and other overnight stays.
- Overnight leisure 84.9%
- Day trips, business and other 15.1%
Shares calculated from the published 2024 counts of 18,207,274 person-stays in total and 15,464,150 on overnight leisure trips. No further split by purpose is published.
Accommodation
Hotels & occupancy
The area's 272 hotels (32,479 rooms) averaged 54.5% occupancy in 2024 at an average daily rate of $133, and sold 6.4 million room nights (+2%). Vacation rentals averaged 41.3% occupancy at $215 a night. In summer 2025 (June to August) hotel occupancy averaged 70.2%, 2.1% lower than a year earlier. On 4 July 2026 it reached 93.2%, 13.2% higher than on the same day of 2025.
Economic impact
Tourism in Myrtle Beach's economy
Travel spending supported 37,760 direct jobs in Horry County in 2024, with earnings of $1.73 billion. Direct travel spending in the county was $6.2 billion, 1.8% lower than in 2023 but 36.1% higher than in 2019. Travel generated $584.8 million in state and local tax revenue, down 2.4%.
County figures cover direct effects only and come from the statewide travel-impact model; of the $584.8 million in tax, $207.9 million was local and $376.9 million state. Horry County governments received a base allocation of $30.6 million from the state 2% accommodations tax in fiscal year 2024-25 (July to June), down from $31.1 million; $14.1 million of it was for the City of Myrtle Beach. Horry County's hospitality fee raised about $59.3 million in 2024, 1.3% more than in 2023.
At a glance
Fast facts
- $12.9bn Spending by US visitors (2024)
- $290m Spending by international visitors (2024, card-data estimate)
- 30% Visitors staying 3–4 nights, the most common length (2024)
- 3.84m Airport passengers, arriving and departing (2024, record)
- 31,818 Vacation rental listings (2024, +17%)
- 3.02m Rounds of golf played (2024)
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How many tourists visit Myrtle Beach each year?
The Myrtle Beach area received an estimated 18.2 million visitors from within the US in 2024, 3.6% more than in 2023 (17.6 million). That is still below the 2019 level of 20.6 million. The estimate counts person-stays, including day trips, and does not include international visitors. No estimate for 2025 has been published yet.
How much do tourists spend in Myrtle Beach?
US-resident visitors spent an estimated $13.2 billion in the Myrtle Beach area in 2024, 5.3% more than in 2023. Overnight leisure visitors accounted for $12.2 billion. International visitors spent an estimated $290 million. The figures are nominal.
Where do Myrtle Beach visitors come from?
Most visitors come from nearby states. North Carolina sends the most visitors, followed by South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio. Outside the Carolinas, the largest metropolitan markets are Atlanta, Washington DC and New York.
How busy is Myrtle Beach International Airport?
Myrtle Beach International Airport handled a record 3,837,052 arriving and departing passengers in 2024, nearly 14% more than in 2023. Traffic fell in 2025: boardings were 1,743,132, 8.0% fewer than in 2024.
How many jobs does tourism support in Horry County?
Travel spending supported 37,760 direct jobs in Horry County in 2024, with earnings of $1.73 billion. Direct travel spending in the county was $6.2 billion and generated $584.8 million in state and local tax revenue. These figures exclude indirect and induced effects.
Using these figures?
Cite this page
Journalists, researchers and bloggers are welcome to use the statistics on this page. Please credit Myrtle Beach Tourism Statistics and link to this page.
Myrtle Beach Tourism Statistics (2026). Visitors, spending and trends. Last reviewed 2 November 2026. https://www.ustourismstatistics.com/myrtle-beach
<a href="https://www.ustourismstatistics.com/myrtle-beach">Myrtle Beach Tourism Statistics</a> Notes & sources
Methodology & sources
This page compiles publicly available statistics; the sources for every figure are listed below. Main caveats:
- Visitor and spending estimates are DK Shifflet figures for 2024, published by Visit Myrtle Beach; no 2025 estimate had been published by November 2026. County figures are from the Dean Runyan Associates study for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (2024 data, March 2026). Airport boardings for 2025 are from the Federal Aviation Administration. Accommodations tax figures are the state fiscal years 2023-24 and 2024-25.
- DK Shifflet surveys US households each month and counts person-stays, so the totals cover US residents only, include day trips and in-state visitors, and count visits, not unique people. The survey reports travel to Myrtle Beach as a destination; Visit Myrtle Beach presents it as the Myrtle Beach area and Horry County. International spending is a separate Visa card-spending estimate. Origin-state and length-of-stay rankings in the annual report come from Longwoods International, MMGY and Near data. The overnight leisure share was calculated from the published counts.
- The DK Shifflet figure ($13.2 billion) and the Dean Runyan county figure ($6.2 billion direct travel spending in Horry County) are produced with different methods and are not comparable. The county figure includes non-trip spending such as travel arrangement and convention services, and covers direct impacts only. The county report text gives about $6.3 billion for 2024, but its tables show $6,198.2 million for 2024 and $6,310.0 million for 2023; the table figures are used here. County employment is 37,760 in the trend table and 37,750 in the summary table.
- Hotel data are from STR (later CoStar) and exclude vacation rentals; vacation rental data are from KeyData, whose listing counts may overlap across booking sites. Occupancy changes are percent changes, not percentage points. Airport passengers for 2024 are the Horry County Department of Airports count of arriving and departing passengers. The 2025 figure is FAA enplanements (boardings only), which are not directly comparable with the airport's own totals; the FAA list gives 1,894,929 boardings for 2024.
- The accommodations tax base allocation is the state 2% tax collected in the Horry County area less statutory set-asides, as distributed by the State Treasurer's Office. The hospitality fee is a Horry County Government figure reported by Visit Myrtle Beach. Golf rounds are from Visit Myrtle Beach. The golf market economic impact study (National Golf Foundation and partners) covers Horry and Georgetown counties and Brunswick County, NC, and found a total impact of $1.6 billion and 13,340 jobs in 2024.
Primary sources
- DK Shifflet: Myrtle Beach, SC Visitor Volume and Spending 2024 : Person-stays, stays, person-days and direct spending 2012–2024, total and overnight leisure (survey of US households); published by Visit Myrtle Beach.
- Visit Myrtle Beach: 2024 Annual Report : Visitors, domestic and international spending, length of stay, origin states, tax collections, lodging metrics (STR and KeyData) and airport traffic for 2024.
- Visit Myrtle Beach: Industry Research : Fact page: 2024 hotel supply (STR), hotel and vacation rental occupancy, vacation rental listings, golf rounds and hospitality fee.
- South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism / Dean Runyan Associates: The Economic Impact of Travel in South Carolina 2024 : State and county impacts: Horry County direct travel spending, earnings, employment and tax revenue, 2014–2024; report dated March 2026.
- South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism: State 2% Accommodations Tax distribution, FY2024-25 : Distribution of statewide accommodations tax revenue to local governments, full fiscal year 2024-25 (State Treasurer's Office data).
- South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism: State 2% Accommodations Tax distribution, FY2023-24 : Distribution of statewide accommodations tax revenue to local governments, full fiscal year 2023-24 (State Treasurer's Office data).
- Federal Aviation Administration: CY2025 Enplanements at All Airports : Calendar year 2025 and 2024 enplanements by airport, Myrtle Beach International (MYR); list dated 24 Sep 2026.
- Horry County Department of Airports: news release : Myrtle Beach International Airport record passenger numbers in 2024, 17 Jan 2025.
- Visit Myrtle Beach: news release : Peak summer 2025 hotel occupancy (STR) and vacation rental occupancy (KeyData), June–August 2025; 8 Oct 2025.
- Visit Myrtle Beach: news release : July 4th 2026 holiday weekend hotel occupancy (CoStar) and vacation rental occupancy (KeyData); 10 Jul 2026.
- Visit Myrtle Beach: Myrtle Beach Area Golf Market Economic Impact : 2024 total impact, jobs and course count for the golf market in Horry and Georgetown counties and Brunswick County, NC; study with the National Golf Foundation and partners, 26 Aug 2025.