Cultural Facilities, Sports Teams, Museums and Special Events to Receive Recognition for Contributions to Denver’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Tourism Industry 

DENVER (Feb. 10, 2025) – VISIT DENVER will celebrate seven Tourism Stars at the 25th Annual Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame Dinner on Wednesday, March 5, at the Mission Ballroom. These honorees have made significant contributions to Denver’s thriving tourism industry, which plays a vital role in the local economy. Tourism Stars are organizations, events, sports teams, museums and cultural institutions that went above and beyond in 2024, helping to make Denver a top destination for leisure travelers and convention and meeting attendees. 

Each year, Tourism Stars play a large role in supporting the local economy through tourism. In 2023 (the latest year for figures), Denver’s tourism industry recorded 37.4 million annual visitors who spent more than $10.3 billion, while supporting 73,600 jobs, making tourism one of the largest employers in the metro area. 

“Denver hosted many memorable experiences in 2024 thanks to amazing area partners,” said Richard Scharf, president & CEO of VISIT DENVER, the official marketing organization for the city of Denver. “From international golf tournaments and national college hockey championships to awe-inspiring exhibitions at our museums and gardens, our city offered something for everyone. We’re delighted to honor these seven Tourism Stars for their role in enhancing our city’s tourism landscape.” 

 

The 2025 Denver Tourism Stars are: 

1. BMW Championship for attracting more than185,000 spectators and worldwide media television coverage as the PGA TOUR returned to Colorado for the first time in a decade. 

2. Denver Art Museum for the extremely popular “Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak,” “Biophilia: Nature Reimagined” and for “Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.”  

3. Denver Botanic Gardens for the sensational show from Mexico, “Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and Maria Angeles,” for “Blossoms of Light,” “Glow at the Gardens” and “River's Voice: Textiles by Alexandra Kehayoglou.” 

4. DCPA Off-Center for launching three national tours of three internationally-renowned immersive experiences: “Space Explorers: THE INFINITE,” “DARKFIELD” and “MONOPOLY LIFESIZED: Travel Edition.” 
5. Denver Museum of Nature & Science for another outstanding year of special exhibitions including “Orcas: Our Shared Future,” “The Power of Poison,” “Wild Color” and “Animals of the Rainforest.” 
6. University of Denver Pioneers, Men’s NCAA Hockey Team for winning their NCAA-record 10th National Championship. 

7. Wings Over the Rockies™ Air & Space Museum for 30 years of bringing the awe and wonder of flight to Denver, while becoming one of the city’s top visitor attractions.  

 

The Tourism Stars will be honored alongside VISIT DENVER Hall of Fame recipients at the Tourism Hall of Fame dinner on Wednesday, March 5 at the Mission Ballroom. Hall of Fame inductees are: Paul Andrews, president and CEO, National Western Stock Show and Rodeo; Jayne Buck, former vice president of tourism, VISIT DENVER; Greg Leonard, general manager, Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center and Brian Vogt, CEO, Denver Botanic Gardens. 

The Hall of Fame Dinner also serves as a fundraiser for the VISIT DENVER Foundation which promotes the hospitality and tourism industry in the Denver metro area through activities and projects that enhance education, professional development and training for individuals interested in the hospitality and tourism industry. Since 2001, the Foundation has raised and awarded $1.6 million in scholarships to 577 travel and hospitality students.  

 

2025 Tourism Stars  

  1. BMW Championship.  Held August 20-25, 2024 at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, the penultimate event of the PGA TOUR’s playoffs brought 50 of the top professional golfers in the world - and 138,500 fans - to the metro Denver area. The event generated major national and international television coverage, broadcasting the beauty of metro Denver around the globe. The tournament was honored as the PGA Tour’s “Tournament of the Year,” raising $10.2 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation and college scholarships for youth caddies.  

  2. Denver Art Museum.  Founded in 1893, the Denver Art Museum today is one of the largest art museums between Chicago and the West Coast with more than 70,000 works of art in 12 collections. Special exhibits in 2024 included “Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak”. The show presented more than 450 artworks created by Maurice Sendak, one of the most versatile artists of the twentieth century. Sendak is best known for picture books including, “Where the Wild Things Are,” the beloved children’s book he authored in 1963 that became a cultural touchstone. The show included a wide array of drawings, paintings, posters and original sketches and illustrations from many of Sendak’s books. It also included set designs for the “Where the Wild Things Are” opera and the costumes for the live-action, feature-length film making this show of interest to visitors of all ages throughout the West and across the nation. Other special exhibitions at the museum in 2024 included “Biophilia: Nature Reimagined” and “Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.” 

  3. Denver Botanic Gardens. Covering 23 acres, Denver Botanic Gardens features North America's largest collection of plants from cold temperate climates around the world, and a variety of gardens that showcase plants from Colorado and neighboring states. Special exhibitions and events in 2024 included: “Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and Maria Angeles.” Created by the workshop of Mexican artists Jacobo and María Ángeles, these huge brightly colored and richly patterned sculptures depict hybrid animals that act as both spirit guides and astrological embodiments of human character. The figures were placed around the gardens, creating an unforgettable outdoor experience reminding visitors of the profound connections that bind us to the inhabitants of the natural (and cosmological) world. Jacobo and María Ángeles are a married artist team based in San Martín Tilcajete in Oaxaca, Mexico. The artists employ more than 100 artisans in a workshop and their creations have been exhibited in museums throughout the globe, including the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. In 2024, the gardens also hosted the ever-popular holiday “Blossoms of Light” and “Glow at the Gardens” and “River's Voice: Textiles by Alexandra Kehayoglou.” 

  4. DCPA Off-Center. What began in 2010 as a small theatrical test kitchen has grown into a signature line of programming at the Denver Center for Performing Arts, credited with bringing immersive theatre to Colorado and helping establish Denver as a national hub for immersive art and entertainment. In 2024, Off-Center premiered three internationally-renowned immersive experiences in Denver, launching national tours of each. “Space Explorers: THE INFINITE,” the world’s largest free-roaming virtual reality experience and inspired by NASA missions aboard the International Space Station, offered audiences breathtaking 360-degree views of Earth and share stories of life in space as an astronaut. “DARKFIELD: SÉANCE, FLIGHT + COMA,” three different immersive audio experiences, took place inside custom-built shipping containers and in complete darkness. Also, “MONOPOLY LIFESIZED: Travel Edition,” now running at Off-Center @ Broadway Park, is an interactive way to play the world’s favorite board game. Combined, these three experiences engaged nearly 80,000 people in 2024 and had an economic impact of approximately $12 million. 

  5. Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The 716,000-square-foot building houses more than one million objects in its collections including natural history and anthropological materials, as well as archival and library resources and is one of the most-visited nature and science museums in the U.S. In 2024, popular exhibitions drawing visitors included “Orcas: Our Shared Future,” which traced these fascinating marine mammals, helping us to discover their stunning intelligence, complex social structures, and language and communication abilities. In land-locked Denver, the special exhibition was an opportunity for visitors to explore the mysteries of the ocean. Other special exhibitions in 2024 included "The Power of Poison,” “Wild Color” and “Animals of the Rainforest.” 

  6. University of Denver Pioneers, Men’s NCAA Hockey Team. Winning again in 2024, the Pioneers have now taken the crown for the most Men’s Ice Hockey National Championships in NCAA history with 10 (1958, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, 2004, 2005, 2017, 2022, 2024).  DU’s five national championships since the turn of the century are also the most in college hockey. The Pioneers have won 15 regular season conference championships (12 WCHA, 3 NCHC) and 18 conference playoff titles (15 WCHA, 3 NCHC). More than 80 Pioneers have gone on to play in the National Hockey League and 136 players overall have been drafted by NHL teams. The program has won at least 20 games in 23 consecutive full seasons dating back to 2001-02 and won 30 games in each of the past three years. Denver hockey will host the 2025 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game at Ball Arena against the University of Minnesota this upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. The prestige of this team has helped cement Denver’s tourism reputation as the “Hockey Capital USA” and has brought national television coverage and fans to Denver from throughout the region.  

  7. Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum, 30th Anniversary. For 30 years, Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum – a Colorado-based non-profit organization and Colorado’s official Air and Space Museum -- has been a cornerstone of aviation and aerospace education, preserving history while inspiring the future. Located in Denver’s historic Lowry neighborhood in Hangar #1, the museum has grown into a world-class destination entertaining as many as 160,000 visitors annually from all 50 states and over 30 countries.  

Wings Museum boasts more than 100,000 square feet of exhibit space dedicated to displaying over 60 iconic aircraft, space exploration artifacts and interactive exhibits that ignite curiosity in visitors of all ages. Through hands-on STEM programs, immersive experiences and groundbreaking initiatives like Wings Aerospace Education and Behind the Wings® PBS series, Wings continues to fuel the dreams of tomorrow’s aviators, engineers and explorers. Wings’ mission and vision remains steadfast: to honor the past, elevate the present and to educate, inspire and excite the next generation into a future of limitless possibilities.