TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) – COVID’s precautions haven’t been suppressing our local travel industry as much as you might think – there has been a big boom that is getting stronger and stronger.

The Tucson travel industry woke up this morning with a strong recovery. Conde Nast Traveler magazine Put Tucson on the annual hotlist of the best sights – right next to glittering international spots like Dubai.

It’s Dan Gibson’s job at Visit Tucson to convince people to visit Tucson, so getting on the magazine’s hotlist is a real gift.

“It just opens you up to a group of people who may never have thought of Tucson,” he said. “If there is an infinite number of places to travel and have these mentions, they add up. It feels like everyone is talking about Tucson and then it becomes impossible not to come here.”

But Tucson tourism has bounced back even without the magazine’s help. Visitors penned in by COVID and starving for something completely different will find it here in award-winning restaurants so unique that the United Nations has recognized the food here as a cultural treasure and natural beauty like nothing they see at home become.

When Donna Wilkerson visited the family here, she was impressed by how different it is from her home in North Carolina.

“Because we live on the coast and we don’t have any other flowers like these here. I’ve never seen that before,” she said. “So, to me, if someone came from the east coast, I’d say the beauty of Arizona. And people think when they think of Arizona that it’s just desert, but it’s not.”

They saw more guests at the Hotel McCoy in February. Since then, there have been more vaccinations every month and more people caring about their guests.

Amanda Rochelle says the first visitors to arrive could drive to Tucson from places like California or Texas.

“I would definitely say that a lot of these people, especially in the past, are people who are just nature lovers, of course,” she said. “They like a lot, you know, hiking, things like that. A lot of that lot, because they want to do live events and things outside that automatically feel safer just because there are less cramped spaces.”

Travel experts say the boom is mostly due to vacation travel – that Tucson has still not seen a return from the big business events that power the big resorts.

Tucson’s hot summers usually cool the travel business, but Visit Tucson’s Dan Gibson believes that people looking to travel again could make for a busier summer, even if they are Phoenix residents or Mexicans just visiting for the weekend . He believes the real impact of the Conde Nast article praising Tucson could come in the fall.