How would you feel if your household budget lost $1,647 for the year. Some households might not feel much impact, but it could be problematic for many households in our area. So, what might cause this loss in household budgets? It would happen if our tourism came to a halt. Tourism in Utah provides that $1,647 in tax relief per Utah household every year.

Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
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Visit Cedar City – Brian Head has released its Tourism Works 2022 Annual Report, and things took a great upturn for our region, particularly following the down years of the pandemic. According to the report, Iron County saw a return to some normalcy as the travel restrictions due to the Covid 19 pandemic began to ease, and international borders were open once again.

Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
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Unlike this last winter, the winter of 2021/2022 was one of the worst snowfalls on records, but despite that, Brian Head Resort had one of their best seasons. Part of that may have been due to people really desiring to get outside, and even though international travel restrictions were still in place to some degree, domestic travel opportunities were starting to open, and with a relatively close prime market in Las Vegas, people made their way to our mountains in Iron County.

Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
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In late fall of 2022, a 30 year development plan was announced for a major expansion of the Brian Head Resort along with the Aspen Meadow area. When completed, the expansion will add 850 acres of new skiable terrain. The expansion will also bring seven new lifts along with lots of new steep and extreme terrain. There will also be some new beginning and intermediate terrain. One new lodge will also be added. Following the expansion, Brian Head will be Utah's seventh largest resort.

Visit Cedar City - Brianhead
Visit Cedar City - Brianhead
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Special events are one of the top reasons visitors come to our area. In 2022, Visit Cedar City – Brian Head invested $223,387 in local events including the Iron County Fair, the Cedar Livestock Festival, Utah Summer Games, the Jubilee of Trees and many more. It is the objective of Visit Cedar City – Brian Head to help in the development of new events and maintain the patronage of existing events with the goal of further building visitation to Iron County.

Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
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In addition to investing in special events, Visit Cedar City – Brian Head also invests in providing improvements in facilities and infrastructure to benefit both visitor and community members. Some of those improvements funded in 2022 were theater improvements and updates at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, a heating system and roping boxes at the Cross Hollows Arena and helping to fund a ranger booth, campground improvements and night sky programming at Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Visit Cedar City - Brian Head / Utah Shakespeare Festival
Visit Cedar City - Brian Head / Utah Shakespeare Festival
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Spending by tourists coming to our area was estimated at $139.8 million dollars. From with in the United States we were visited most by visitors from St. George, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Provo and Ogden. From international locations we were most visited from Canada, Germany, France, Mainland China and Mexico.

Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
Visit Cedar City - Brian Head
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To get a feel of what is being done to attract visitors to Iron County, make sure to go to VisitCedarCity.com. While you are there you can also check out events for locals and visitors alike.

Quiz: Do you know your state insect?

Stacker has used a variety of sources to compile a list of the official state insect(s) of each U.S. state, as well as their unique characteristics. Read on to see if you can guess which insect(s) represent your state. 

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