Palmetto Carriage Works Blog

Fun Facts You Didn’t Know about Charleston Tourism

On average, Charleston has 230 sunny days a year, which is 63%. The yearly average temperature is a perfect 65 degrees, making us a temperate tropical climate.

Over 6 million people visit Charleston each year, which is 60x its year-round population of 100,000. (Note: the entire tri-county area is about 550,000 people.)

Visitors typically spend 4 nights and spend an average of $217 per adult per day.

Our Passenger Terminal for cruise ships has between 80-90 scheduled round-trip cruise departures each year. The average capacity of these large cruise ships is 3,000, which means nearly 250,000 people come through!

In 2015, the Charleston Port handled nearly $76 billion dollars of goods. Yep, we said billion with a ‘B’!

15,000 people pass through the gates at the Charleston International Airport every day.

The majority of our tourists hail from North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio and New York.

Charleston has been a film town for awhile now. Scenes from Cold Mountain, The Notebook, and most recently Halloween (2018) were filmed here. Additionally, television series like HBO’s Vice Principals and Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes are also filming here this year.

In 2016, Charleston was voted the #1 City in the World by Travel + Leisure readers. Though we’d been the #1 city in the United States and Canada for four years running, we were shocked and excited to win the World’s #1 coveted spot! Though we were 10th on the 2018 list, we were the only U.S. city to be included in the top 15, a distinctive honor. This award has been a large component to the increase in Charleston tourism in recent years.

Ready to visit us? There’s no better way to see Charleston than a horse-drawn carriage ride with Palmetto Carriage Works. Our tour guides are the most knowledgeable, experienced and horse-loving individuals you’ll find in the area.