Tourism in metropolitan Detroit 25
Market overview
Tourists can ride in a Model T in Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford, a National Historic Landmark.
The metropolitan region’s tourism industry depends on drawing large crowds to positively impact the local economy. As the world’s traditional automotive center, the city hosts the annual North American International Auto Show in January, a multi-day event. Other major multi-day events which reflect the region’s culture such as the Motown Winter Blast and the Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival can draw super sized-crowds of hundreds of thousands to over three million people. In 2006, the four-day Motown Winter Blast drew a cold weather crowd of about 1.2 million people to Campus Martius Park area downtown. Metro Detroit is one of thirteen U.S. cities with teams from four major sports.
Besides casino gaming, the region’s leading attraction is The Henry Ford, America’s largest indoor-outdoor museum complex, a museum entertainment complex with an IMAX theater next to the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn. The Detroit Institute of Arts in the cultural center downtown is another leading attraction. The Detroit Festival of the Arts in Midtown draws about 350,000 people. The Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak has the nation’s largest polar bear exhibit, the Arctic Ring of Wildlife. The zoo has a train which encircles the park. Together, The Henry Ford, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Zoo attract about 2,500,000 visitors annually.
Greektown in Detroit
Another automotive attraction cataloging the history of the industry is the Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills. Historic tours of the mansions of the auto barons such as Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe, Henry Ford’s Fair Lane Estate in Dearborn, and the Lawrence Fisher Mansion in Detroit are available.
The city’s Greektown is a busy entertainment district. The city has evolved into a center for the major