Numbers For Lake Tourism Differ Between Local & State Reporting

How many people made Lake of the Ozarks a visitor destination in 2024…?

That may depend on which numbers you look at.

Numbers provided by the Missouri Division of Tourism to the Lake of the Ozarks Convention and Visitor Bureau indicate, in 2024, there were 42 million domestic visitors statewide with 8 percent of the overnight visitors…or 3,360,000…coming to the lake area.

While those numbers were calculated by Longwoods International for the Missouri Visitor Profile, two other methods to estimate the numbers came in lower…both by more than one-million fewer visitors.

An explanation from the Division of Tourism says the lower numbers reported in the other two methods are likely because they are based on the lake area’s share of the statewide economic impact and because the lake has a large number of visitors who stay in second homes and are less likely to eat in restaurants.

CVB Director Heather Brown says more data showing visitation numbers to the lake for this year will be released at a later time.