The number of convention attendees visiting Portland is poised to drop sharply next year, a lingering echo of the trauma the city endured in the pandemic and its aftermath.
Portland is set to draw about 260,000 convention visitors in 2025. That’s well ahead of pre-COVID levels and the city’s third strong year of convention business in a row. But convention visitors will drop substantially in 2026, based on current booking levels.
The reason? A hangover from the pandemic era, and the accompanying upheaval that blighted Portland and its national image.
“We saw this coming. This is not a surprise to us. We knew the storm was arriving and now it’s here,” said Marcus Hibdon, communications director for Travel Portland, the not-for-profit agency that markets the city to visitors.
Large conventions typically book a few years in advance. In 2021 and 2022, Portland was still digging out from the riots of 2020, an increase in homelessness, and a surge in homicides and other crimes. Out-of-town organizations booking ahead for conventions in 2026 wanted no part of that, according to Hibdon.
That triggered the steep drop-off in convention bookings that Portland will feel next year. Advance hotel room bookings for 2026 are down by a third compared to 2025, though Travel Portland said it’s confident late bookings will close a portion of that gap.
Regardless, the outlook gets better in a hurry in the years ahead.
While homelessness and public drug use remain severe problems — especially in parts of downtown Portland — crime has fallen sharply over the past two years and Portland’s national image has improved considerably.
“Some of the reputational things we’d been going through in the past, that’s really fading into the rear-view mirror,” said Jon Hixon, Travel Portland’s vice president of business strategy. He said organizations that visit Portland now to scout the city for conventions are typically very pleased with what they find.
Hotel occupancy in and around downtown is at its highest level since the pandemic over the past 12 months, at nearly 60%, according to Travel Portland data.
And hotel room bookings for future conventions are up enormously, from a low of 54,000 in 2021 to more than 330,000 last year. That’s an all-time high.
Some of those conventions won’t hit the city for several years, but Travel Portland said the record bookings suggest a path to toward a sustained rebound in visitor traffic.
“Last summer we feel like there was a big shift,” Hibdon said. “We’re seeing recovery.”
This is Oregon Insight, The Oregonian’s weekly look at the numbers behind the state’s economy. View past installments here.
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