Washington, D.C. March Shows Promise of Protest Tourism
Photo Credit: Marches like the Women's March on Washington in January 2017, pictured here, are examples of marches that DC tourism officials don't do any marketing for. Flickr / Molly Adams
Skift Take
Protests and marches are a phenomenon that D.C. tourism officials never asked for but are forced to reckon with. It's an ongoing reckoning that the city's tourism board is still figuring out in the digital age, and other destinations are taking cues.
Large events are everything to a destination and many tourism boards spend a lot of time and money working to attract meetings and conventions.
But when that destination is a political epicenter like Washington, D.C., some events like the March For Our Lives anti-gun violence protest scheduled for Saturday show make it easy for tourism officials.
Washington, D.C. is expecting about half a million anti-gun violence protestors this weekend who will be calling for gun control reform. The march comes after a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida in February that killed 17 people, and many of the attendees will be high school and college students who will travel from different parts of the United States.
More than 800 other smaller, local marches will take place in other U.S. cities and around the world on Saturday.
Tourism boards often have little to do with marches and protests yet these events have an outsized impact on other sectors like hotels, airlines, and dining.
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