WorldPride. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key.)
Destination D.C., the nonprofit organization that promotes and tracks tourism and special events in the nation’s capital, announced on Aug. 26 that an estimated 1.2 million people attended WorldPride 2025 in D.C, which took place May 17-June 8.
The organization says a study it conducted also shows WorldPride 2025 had a positive economic impact on the city of $310.7 million.
Those numbers fall far short of predictions of 2-3 million visitors and nearly $800 million in economic impact. Hotel occupancy rates were 5 percent lower than in 2024 for the same week.
The announcement of the WorldPride attendance and economic impact numbers were included in a statement reporting on the economic impact of tourism in the city in 2024, changes in visitation and tourism occurring in 2025, and Destination D.C.’s plans to promote tourism in 2026.
Some D.C. government officials, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, whose office provided D.C. agency support for WorldPride events, had predicted back in January that as many as three million visitors would turn out for WorldPride D.C. Some city officials had also predicted the WorldPride events would have as much as a $787 million economic impact on the city.
But not long after President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025 and began putting in place policies hostile to countries in Europe, Latin America, and Canada, including proposed tariffs, news began to surface that many potential visitors from foreign countries, including possible LGBTQ visitors, were choosing not to come to the United States.
Trump’s statements and policies in opposition to LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, also played a role in alienating potential visitors to the U.S. for WorldPride, observers have said.
“Washington, D.C. shined during WorldPride, an incredible celebration that honored and advocated for the global LGBTQ+ community, with an estimated 1.2 million attendees across hundreds of events, resulting in $310.7 million in economic impact,” the Destination D.C. statement says.
“While the impact was significant, hotel occupancy throughout the duration of WorldPride was down about five percent year-over-year, according to STR,” the statement continues. STR is a tourism research firm.
“An economic impact study conducted in early 2024 predicted stronger figures based on travel trends from 2023, before the current political and economic climate,” it says.
“Despite those challenges, WorldPride had strong regional support and went far in extending the message that Washington, D.C. is a welcoming and inclusive destination for visitors of all backgrounds,” according to the statement. “There were attendees from all over the world.”
Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that played the lead role in organizing WorldPride D.C. 2025, had pointed out that the local D.C. government hosting WorldPride has a longtime strong record of support for the LGBTQ community.
The group argued that LGBTQ activists should turn out for WorldPride as a form of protest against the Trump administration, among other things, by joining the planned WorldPride LGBTQ and allied March on Washington for Freedom that took place June 8 and traveled from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol.
Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos said that while the 1.2 million attendance number released by Destination D.C. is lower than what had initially been predicted, it is double the number of people who turn out for the city’s annual Capital Pride events.
“We’re thrilled about the number of folks that made it to Washington to experience WorldPride at a time when our community was under attack,” Bos told the Washington Blade. “And this report shows that this event, as our Capital Pride shows every year, is a strong economic engine for the District of Columbia,” he said.
“It was a challenging time,” Bos said. “But it was a historic WorldPride. We’re thrilled that we were able to bring the community together internationally, nationally, and locally.”
He said D.C. WorldPride included more than 300 events.
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