ANAHEIM — The city of Anaheim released strong results of its performance in 2025, including welcoming a record 26.5 million visitors throughout the year and hosting major marquee events.
The record-breaking year has been the result of the city investing in an “always-on” culture, providing visitors with a non-stop supply of experiences, events and entertainment. Increases in visitation are credited to strong demand from meetings and events, new restaurant openings in the Downtown Disney District and major concerts and a strong season for the city’s NHL team at Honda Center.
“Disneyland’s 70th anniversary helped our leisure, and our demand for group bookings was up 11% for 2025. We added a brand-new position dedicated to sports groups, and last year alone she (Katie Wright) booked close to 50,000 room nights, and some of that fell in 2025. Our pace on the books for 2026 is even better so far through May, and we’re having the strongest group year in the history of the city of Anaheim right now,” said Mike Waterman, President and CEO of Visit Anaheim.
Breaking Down the Economic Impact
According to Visit Anaheim’s data, those 26.5 million visitors generated $6.8 billion in visitor spending and a whopping $10.4 billion in total economic impact. For the city, tourism in 2025 also generated $970 million in state and local taxes, which provided an equivalent of nearly $9,000 in tax relief for every household in Anaheim.
Exciting Developments on the Horizon
With phase one of the new OCVIBE development slated to open in March of 2027, Anaheim is gearing up for a surge of new projects in the destination, including the new DisneylandForward project.
While DisneylandForward will bring more hotels, shopping, dining and entertainment options around Disneyland, which sits about two miles from the convention center, OCVIBE is bringing exciting new dining and entertainment options to the destination as well.
“The one thing Anaheim was sort of light on was adult-forward live entertainment offerings. Everybody knows we’re family-friendly, but we get pushback from groups that don’t want to compete against Disney and keep their folks on campus,” Waterman said. “We typically have said that they’ll benefit from Disney because we’re clean, safe and welcoming, but now we also have this OCVIBE project with 26 high-end restaurants, bars and live entertainment. It’s going to change the trajectory of Anaheim as it relates to tourism forever.”
Excitingly for organizers planning events in Anaheim, the ability to host offsite events at the new OCVIBE development will have a key feature to help make planning more seamless: The development is under one ownership, meaning there is only one contract involved for booking spaces within the new district.
Aside from OCVIBE and DisneylandForward, the destination is also preparing for hotel developments, with one developer looking to add 2,000 hotel rooms to the city’s inventory through the Katella Project, and another planning to build a 750-room tower close to the convention center.
“If you haven’t sourced or come to Anaheim for a trade show or group event, we encourage you to do that, because if you haven’t been here in even just five years, you’ll be blown away by the changes and pleasantly surprised,” Waterman said.
Related. The NAMM Show Celebrates the Past While Embracing the Future
Authentic Marketing Efforts Pay Off
One way Anaheim is increasing its presence is through its “Come Visit Anaheim” message. Instead of the marketing coming directly from Visit Anaheim as the DMO, the organization is leveraging influencers to amplify the attractions within the destination.
“Using other people who are passionate about Anaheim, and in their own words, [and] using their own connections has been way more valuable than the traditional channels,” Waterman said. “Last week we had Tony Hawk talking about nostalgia travel, and how he and his best friends did a lot of their skating in Anaheim, and about some of the restaurants that were still around that he loved. So, we’re really leaning into this idea of having influencers and other folks that have a connection to Anaheim talking about the destination. We’ve seen significant success using that strategy.”
Home to Gold 100 Shows
As the 10th largest convention center in the U.S. and the largest facility on the West Coast, the Anaheim Convention Center holds 1,013,607 square feet of prime exhibit space and 130,000 square feet of meeting space, according to the Trade Show Executive (TSE) World’s Top Convention Centers directory.
In 2025, Anaheim hosted a grand total of five TSE Gold 100 shows: MD&M West, The NAMM Show, Natural Products Expo West, The Global Produce & Floral Show and the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo.
Aside from being home to Gold 100 shows, Anaheim is welcoming industry events over the next few years to help highlight all the development happening in the destination.
“Starting this year, for the next five years, we have five major industry events coming, which will bring close to 20,000 meeting planners and travel professionals to Anaheim, and the sole purpose is to expose these folks to the new Anaheim, and what’s happening, so they realize, you know, it’s a new destination that is perfect for leisure and also perfect for group,” Waterman said. “We have an amazing trajectory of industry events that we know are going to completely put people’s eyes on Anaheim when we’re shining the most, and we’re super excited about that.”
Featured Photo Credit: Visit Anaheim
To get more events industry news, subscribe to TSE’s free e-newsletter on LinkedIn or through your email.
