Tourism in metropolitan Detroit
Tourism in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan is a significant factor for the region's culture and for its economy, comprising nine percent of the area's two million jobs.
[16][17] The metropolitan region's tourism industry depends on drawing large crowds with quality attractions and entertainment in order to positively impact the local economy.
[18] As the world's traditional automotive center,[19][20] the city hosts the annual North American International Auto Show in January, a multi-day event.
Other major multi-day events that reflect the region's culture such as the Motown Winter Blast and the Windsor–Detroit International Freedom Festival, typically held the last week of June, can draw super sized-crowds of hundreds of thousands to over three million people.
[7][8] A 2007 poll, conducted by Selzer and Co., reported that about two-thirds of the millions of residents in the suburban area occasionally dine and attend cultural events or take in professional games in the city of Detroit.
[7] 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.
Built in 1904 and now running as a museum, it is the oldest car factory building in the world open to the public and was the birthplace of the Ford Model T. An estimated one million spectators attended the 2009 Woodward Dream Cruise held annually in August.
Cranbrook House and Gardens in Bloomfield Hills, the estate of publisher George Gough Booth, is also open to the public for guided tours.
[29] The 710-mile (1,140 km) Quebec City – Windsor Corridor contains over 18 million people, with 51% of the Canadian population and three out of the four largest metropolitan areas in Canada, according to the 2001 Census.
[30] Motown Motion Picture Studios (2009) with 535,000 square feet (49,700 m2) will produce movies at the Pontiac Centerpoint Business Campus for a film industry expected to employ over 4,000 people in the metro area.
Passenger cruise liners depart from and journey to ports throughout the Great Lakes including Chicago, Detroit, Mackinac Island, Toronto, and Montreal.
[36][37] The city's Midtown area includes restored Victorian bed and breakfasts such as the Inn on Ferry Street in the East Ferry Avenue Historic District adjacent to the cultural center near the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Inn at 97 Winder in Detroit's Brush Park Historic District near Comerica Park and Ford Field.
[40] The International Riverfront is linked by the River Walk, a promenade along connecting the cruise ship dock on Hart Plaza to a series of parks, restaurants, retail shops, and other venues from the Marriott at the Renaissance Center to the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel on the historic Stroh's riverplace site.
Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos played a role in the financing to reconstruct the city's historic restoration of Campus Martius Park which now hosts events such as the Motown Winter Blast in January attracting large crowds.
The project will add meeting and exhibit space and glass walls to the exterior in order to provide views of the International Riverfront.
Downtown Detroit contains Greektown, the Lower Woodward Avenue Historic District (Merchant's Row), and the shops and restaurants at the Renaissance Center along the International Riverfront.
[46] Other notable street-side shopping districts include The Village on Kercheval Avenue in Grosse Pointe and the downtown areas of Birmingham, Royal Oak, Northville, Rochester, and Plymouth.
The city's mayor in the 1990s, Dennis Archer, also a former Michigan Supreme Court Justice, supported a plan which resulted in new casino resort hotels as a catalyst for development.
Upon acceptance of the settlement, Detroit entrepreneur Marion Ilitch exercised her option to purchase Motor City Casino, outbidding other partners.
[53] In 2007, complementing the MGM Grand Detroit, DTE Energy announced a $50 million transformation of the area around its downtown headquarters into an urban oasis with parks, walkways, and a reflecting pool.
[56] The nearly $300 million renovation of Cobo Center convention and exhibit facility includes the addition of glass walls to connect the complex with the waterfront.
[62] The Midtown Detroit surrounds Wayne State University, while the adjacent New Center area contains the National Historic Landmarks Cadillac Place and the Fisher Building.
[63] Other significant cultural centers include those in Dearborn, Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, Grosse Pointe, Rochester, Royal Oak, and Ann Arbor.
Through the entry way is a grand marble court lined along the upper and lower levels with Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals, commissioned by Edsel Ford.
The original building is flanked by north and south wings with the white marble as the main exterior material for the entire structure.
Star performances in the city's theatre venue circuit complement major events such as North American International Auto Show.
The refuge includes islands, coastal wetlands, marshes, shoals, and waterfront lands along 48 miles (77 km) of the Detroit River and Western Lake Erie shoreline.
