Chris Holman welcomes back Julie Pingston, President & CEO, Choose Lansing, Lansing, MI.
Watch Julie and Chris discuss Choose Lansing’s record-breaking year and preview what’s ahead for 2025! 
#ChooseLansing #Tourism in the YouTube video shared below:
Welcome back Julie, you’ve just wrapped up your Annual Meeting, tell us about that, and about its focus?
And in that meeting you celebrated some record-breaking numbers please share those?
One of Choose Lansing and the area’s strengths are its CTAs tell us about those and some of them who were recognized yesterday?
A feature of your meetings has been to observe anniversaries of some key businesses and organizations, who was honored this year?
You alluded to the future in your January interview, tell us about “THE LIST”?
Wednesday, March 5th, 2025, MBN was on the road to the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center of East Lansing.
On hand as Choose Lansing® held its annual meeting on March 5, sharing the state of the tourism and hospitality industry and the 2024 local visitor economic impact.
This video shares the opening of the program (from video 1) with the welcome and then opening of remarks by Julie Pingston, President & CEO, Choose Lansing®. It continues on with the rest of the reports, and award presentations on that morning.
“The industry continues to gain positive momentum, ending 2024 with a record-breaking 1,112,196 rooms consumed,” said Julie Pingston, Choose Lansing® President and CEO. “The hotel occupancy rate landed at 54.2%, surpassing 2023’s occupancy rate, both of which are offset by the addition of 800 hotel rooms to the overall inventory since 2019. We’re also excited to report that the Greater Lansing hospitality and tourism industry supports 9,500 local jobs and helps welcome 6.7 million visitors each year, generating $732 million dollars in economic impact for the region.”
To ensure those millions of visitors have a positive experience while in the region, Choose Lansing® implemented the Certified Tourism Ambassadors (CTA) Program, which marks its 15th anniversary in 2025. During the annual meeting, Choose Lansing® celebrated a record 533 CTAs and named Jeff Magnuson, CTA (left) as the CTA Star of the Year.
Choose Lansing® also acknowledged the following local business anniversaries:
- St. Johns Mint Festival – 40 years
- Insty Prints – 40 years
- Fenner Nature Center’s Apple Butter and Maple Syrup Festivals – 50 years
- Arts Council of Greater Lansing – 60 years
- Lansing Art Gallery – 60 years
- A. Dean Watkins – 75 years
- Michigan High School Athletic Association – 100 years
“In 2024, we worked hard to support the hospitality industry, bring visitors to the region, and advocate for a more accessible community,” said Pingston. “As we look forward to 2025, our focus will be to serve as a resource to event planning clients while continuing to help our local hospitality partners thrive.”
Find full details and the 2024 Choose Lansing® annual report at lansing.org/about-us/annual-report-and-meeting/
This was Part 1, check back in coming days for MORE MBN ‘On the Road’ footage from the event, and follow-up interviews of this topic!
About Choose LansingTM The vision of Choose LansingTM is to inspire everyone to celebrate and love Greater Lansing as much as we do! Which goes hand in hand with our mission, to positively impact our community’s quality of life by developing the region as a visitor destination. Learn more at www.lansing.org.
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