UFO Festival brings economic hope to Roswell

ROSEWELL, N.M.-Fourth of July options are limited but Roswell is ready for the first big holiday since the state reopened.

People are taking advantage.

"I think people are just excited and anxious all at the same time," said Juanita Jennings, Public Relations for the City of Roswell.

Roswell anticipates the return of its world-famous UFO Festival.

"For us, we’re really excited to be able to welcome more people in, you know there’s so much planning that goes into a festival and we were not really sure where we were going to end up so we didn’t plan for a full blown event," said Jennings.

She said even on a smaller scale, they’re expecting festival visitors to have a huge economic impact for small businesses.

Our State Department of Tourism just released an update on hotels across our state. As of June 5 occupancies reached a pandemic high, nearly 65%.

The update reports that visitor spending is rising as well, with New Mexico passing the US average by 5%.

Jennings hoped this is just a sign of even better news to come for our extremely important tourism industry.

"It’s amazing, we’re excited, we’re ready, we have been waiting for this for over a year," she said.