PRESS RELEASE: 2024 Christmas Light Extravaganza Contributes an Estimated $7.1 Million in Economic Development for Macon+Bibb

MACON, Ga. (March 4, 2025) — Visit Macon, New Town Macon and the Macon Christmas Light Extravaganza announce the economic impact and visitation report for the 2024/2025 Christmas Light Extravaganza event.

During this year’s event, over 685,000 individuals and families were observed in historic Downtown Macon during the Christmas Lights display. Average length of stays of these visitors continues to rise and out-of-state visitation grew by 3.9% over last year - contributing to the $7.1 million dollars in economic impact.

“Despite the loss of a week due to the timing of Thanksgiving in 2024, the Christmas Lights Extravaganza continues to grow its economic impact attracting thousands from outside Macon-Bibb County resulting in increased visitor spending and record sales tax collections. The visitor economy continues to grow and add to the County tax base allowing for new projects and citizen savings through SPLOST and OLOST while supporting the operations of 11 Macon-Bibb tourism partners with the hotel-motel tax.” shares Gary Wheat, President & CEO of Visit Macon.

Breaking the numbers down a bit further, Visit Macon’s research findings include:

· While the numbers of visitors decreased [850,000 in 2023 vs. more than 685,000 in 2024 (likely impacted by the available fewer days within this year’s holiday period)], the economic impact grew: $7.1 million in 2024 vs. $6.8 million in 2023.

· Visitors spent on average $139.47 per trip this year.

· 52% of visitors stayed in Macon more than 1 day.

· 8.1% of visitors were from Florida and 3.3% were from Alabama.

· For those traveling from 50+ miles, Saturday was the largest attended day.

· For all visits (including locals), Friday saw the largest attendance followed very closely by Saturday.

· 45.8% of all visitors came from households of 3-5 people, with 10.2% coming from households of more than 6 people.

- Source: Analytics insights from Datafy, leveraging data sources like geolocation, spending, demographics, transportation and more.

“What I love most about the Macon Christmas Light Extravaganza is seeing all of the families and friends together – children smiling and memories being made. The economic impact numbers are the cherry on top of the joy the lights bring to visitors. I love seeing how full the restaurants are, thriving businesses, and visitors checking into hotels. These visitors are another reason to vote for the SPLOST, as their visits help support Macon’s infrastructure, parks, and other SPLOST-funded projects. As always, I can’t thank our sponsors and volunteers enough for helping make this a reality every year!” – Bryan Nichols, the mastermind, stage manager and technical engineer of Macon’s Christmas Light Extravaganza.

For more information, please contact Visit Macon’s Director of Marketing, Marisa Rodgers, at (478) 743-1074 x106 or email mrodgers@visitmacon.org.

About Visit Macon: The mission of Visit Macon is to unify and lead our community in marketing the Macon-Bibb County area as a superior visitor and meeting destination. Visit Macon promotes Macon, Georgia to travel writers, meeting planners, group tour operators, and leisure travelers in an effort to bring people and revenues into the community and area businesses. visitmacon.org