Nearly double the number of people who visited Aroostook County in 2024 visited this summer, according to numbers released Thursday by the Maine Office of Tourism.

While visits were down across Maine as a whole, The County was among three regions that had the largest increases in visitors, along with the Maine Lakes & Mountains and Kennebec Valley areas.

Final tourism numbers won’t be out until the end of the year, but the snapshot of summer travel indicates 7.3 million people spent time in Maine, 6% fewer than last year’s 7.8 million. But Aroostook drew about 511,000 tourists during the season, a significant jump over roughly 300,000 people in 2024.

Several factors may be involved, but a new wave of in-state marketing seemed to reap benefits, said Jacob Pelkey, tourism promoter with Ar

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