Five years ago, the tourism industry in the Piedmont area of Virginia was struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic but has steadily rebounded since.
This week, the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau announced that visitors to the area spent over $1 billion in 2025.
“Albemarle County saw $603.5 million in visitor spending, a 2.8 percent increase over 2024,” reads an information release CACVB sent out on September 9. “The City of Charlottesville received $427.7 million in visitor spending, a 6.3 percent increase over 2024.”
That’s an improvement on 2024 when tourism in Albemarle generated $587.2 million in direct spending and $402.6 million in Charlottesville.
The data comes from a 2025 report from the Virginia Tourism Corporation which states that visitors to the Commonwealth spent $36.2 billion last year, the fourth straight annual increase in a row. VTC gets the information from Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economic Company.
Digging deeper in the numbers, Albemarle County generated $29 million in local taxes related to visitors and 3,681 employees received a total income of $262.4 million. Food and beverage made $190 million and lodging made $128.6 million.
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors will get an update from the CACVB on the afternoon of September 16.
Tourism in Charlottesville generated $22.3 million in local taxes and employed 3,366 people who made $130.8 million. Visitors spent $94.6 million on lodging and $185.9 million on food and beverage.
Outlying counties have room to grow if they so choose.
- Fluvanna County generated $11.3 million in direct spending from visitors
- Direct spending in Greene County in 2025 was $30.4 million
- In Louisa, visitors spent $82.1 million, a 12.5 percent increase on the year before
- Nelson County, home to Wintergreen, saw $92.6 million in direct spending
All six localities joined the new Virginia Piedmont tourism region earlier this year, but were in the Central Virginia region for 2025. The Central Virginia region saw direct spending of $6.33 billion.
Before you go: The goal of Town Crier Productions is to increase awareness about what is happening at the local, regional, state, and federal government levels. Please share the work with others if you want people to know things. Paid subscribers cover the cost of conducting research for this article which was originally published in the September 11, 2026 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can either subscribe through Substack or make a charitable contribution.
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