What was the solar eclipse worth to Buffalo Niagara tourism? $14.7 million (2024)

While there may not have been the 1 million people initially expected to visit the Buffalo Niagara region for the solar eclipse, the economic benefit from being in the path of totality still added up.

The eclipse brought $14.7 million in overall economic impact to the Buffalo Niagara region, according to an estimate from local tourism group Visit Buffalo Niagara.

That includes $7.4 million in revenue for local hotels over the long weekend, from April 5 to the day of the eclipse, April 8 – almost four times more than during the same period last year, the report said.

The numbers did not include short-term rentals and day trippers, so the economic impact could have been even greater, Visit Buffalo Niagara officials said.

The eclipse also was good for local restaurants and bars, the report said. Local stores, attractions and transportation services also were beneficiaries of the influx of people, the report said.

Patrick Kaler, president and CEO of Visit Buffalo Niagara, said the $14.7 million estimate is double the economic impact of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament at KeyBank Center in Buffalo – one of the largest events that comes to the area. That long weekend of college basketball games and visitor stays brings in around $7 million to the region. It was last here in 2022, and will return in 2026.

Hotel occupancy in the region was at 77% for the long solar eclipse weekend, including 84% the night before the eclipse. That is about two-thirds higher than the same time last year, the report said.

Daily rates for hotels also more than doubled. Average room rates were up an average of 120% over the long weekend, including an average charge of $305 by regional hotels for the night before the eclipse. Overall, local hotels’ average daily rate for the long weekend was $236.

“I think that $14.7 million is a very respectable number, especially with 77% of our 10,000 Erie County hotel rooms being occupied,” Kaler said. “We have never had an event in Erie County to compare.”

But the cloudy weather on the day of the eclipse caused chasers to reroute to cities with better weather along the path of totality, including Burlington, Vt., Indianapolis and Cleveland.

Kaler said he heard from several hotels that they had lost 10% to 15% of their reservations for the day before and day of the eclipse due to the weather forecast.

Still, state parks across New York exceeded 1 million visitors in total from April 6 to 9, including 12 parks that reached capacity on eclipse day, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

However, none of the parks that reached capacity were located in the Niagara, Allegany and Genesee state park regions. That was more proof that Western New York – aside from the 45,000 visitors at Niagara Falls State Park on April 8 – ultimately ended up not being a prime tourism destination for the solar eclipse as forecasts in the days before correctly predicted the increasing cloud cover.

It is one of the reasons that expected traffic jams did not materialize and the crowds were thinner than predicted. For example, it didn’t take more than an hour to leave the Buffalo Outer Harbor, as some thought could happen.

Matthew Janiszewski, upstate press secretary for the governor, said earlier this month that Empire State Development will work with tourism partners around New York to tabulate an official overall estimate of visitors statewide and locally.

Kaler said it is difficult to say whether these numbers met expectations because, essentially, local officials didn’t know what to expect.

Visit Buffalo Niagara, Erie County, the City of Buffalo and New York State researched what had occurred in other destinations that were in the path of totality for the 2017 eclipse, and all agreed that they would be better off being prepared for “worse case scenarios,” he said.

The Visit Buffalo Niagara study calculated the overall economic impact by using the industry standard event impact calculator from Destinations International.

The calculations also took into account hotel data from Smith Travel Research for the four days, as well as estimates of out-of-town visitors, overnight stays, aviation impacts and people per hotel room.