ST. LOUIS – This year, Explore St. Louis says 2025 brought in more visitors than ever before and now they are looking forward to 2026.

Brad Dean is president and CEO of Explore St. Louis, and he says tourism is booming. According to Explore St. Louis, hotel bookings have increased in the previous years and major concerts were packed due to tourism.

“As we changed the marketing, digital and new market, I think it just shows the importance of St. Louis as a very affordable and accessible destination—that makes us a premier visit in the Midwest,” Dean said.

Officials say the city’s affordability may not be enough to bring in visitors next year. The reason is because the predicted outlook for 2026 doesn’t look promising. This prediction is because fewer large conventions have been booked.

“This is a challenge not a crisis, meetings are booked years sometimes a decade in advance so we knew going into this year that 2026 was going to be soft we have to find some ways to fill those gaps,” Dean said.

One of the events helping fill that gap in 2026 is the ATA Spring National Tournament, part of the worldwide American Taekwondo Association, where the organization is expecting the best martial arts teams from around the world to converge in downtown St Louis.

“After extensive planning, we found St. Louis to be the perfect fit not only is the facility outstanding, but the people at the convention center and throughout the region have been so welcoming,” said chief Master Betsy Stevens, International Chairman of Tournaments.

For tourism leaders, 2026 may not have as many massive conventions, but it’s still too early to count the upcoming year out.

“We are working in the future years to sell more meetings and conventions and we are confident we will be able to turn that corner in 2027 and beyond,” Dean said.