Visitors Spent Over $500M In The Rockford Area In 2025

You know the saying around these parts: “There’s nothing to do around here.”

If you’ve lived in the Rockford area for any length of time, you’ve probably heard it. Maybe you’ve even said it yourself once or twice.

Well, it turns out that there are 549.6 million reasons that you're wrong.

The Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (RACVB) announced this week that visitors to Rockford and Winnebago County spent a record $549.6 million in 2025, according to the latest Illinois Tourism Economic Impact Report. That’s an increase of $26.2 million (or 5%) from 2024.

The part that should make all of us locals feel pretty good is the fact that Rockford and Winnebago County actually outperformed Illinois as a whole.

100 us dollar bill

Let's Check Out Some Of The Numbers

Visitor spending statewide increased 3.5% last year, while Winnebago County’s tourism spending jumped 5%. We also beat the average growth of several comparable large Illinois counties, which came in at about 3.3%.

Apparently, somebody is finding something to do around here.

Credit for the increase comes from several big events. Rockford hosted major new events, including IRONMAN 70.3 Rockford, while the Hard Rock Casino Rockford had its first full year in operation. And, Rockford’s long-established reputation for sports tourism continues to bring people and their wallets to town.

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This Tourism Boom Isn't Just About People Spending Money At Local Attractions

Winnebago County hotels sold approximately 25,900 more rooms in 2025 than they did the year before, while hotel revenue increased nearly 8%.

All that visitor activity translated into 4,774 direct tourism jobs, $177.7 million in direct labor income and $15.6 million in direct local tax revenue. Visitors also generated an estimated $35.7 million in state tax revenue.

And there’s an even bigger picture here. Back in 2019, visitors spent $483.2 million in Winnebago County. Six years later, that number has climbed by $66.4 million, which is a 13.7% increase. Statewide tourism spending grew about 10.3% during the same period.

So the next time somebody says, “There’s nothing to do in Rockford,” you might want to remind them that more than half a billion dollars worth of people apparently disagree, and they keep coming back.