Every year Minot has a great number of visitors, some come just for the day, from other places in North Dakota or from Canada, but many stay over. Minot has 1.615 hotel rooms, which is a lot for a city of this size. And the occupancy of the hotelrooms is averaging 70 %, which is very good. In addition there are two other hotels that have recently been through City Council and have received the ok to move forward. Many homes in Minot and the area have rooms for rent for visitors, which is very useful in particular when the big festivals and fairs are taking place, like Norsk Høstfest, North Dakota State Fair, Motor Magic and the Integrity Jazz Festival. The number of Canadian visitors depends a lot on the currency difference between USD and CAD, but the last few years visits from Canada is up 52 %.

When we were in Minot in October for Norsk Høstfest, we noticed a lot of activities like the North Broadway expansion, the brand new Holiday Inn Express and several housing and real-estate projects. We also heard that a new B52 squadron will be located to Minot Air Force Base, which means an additional 2.500 people to Minot!

Another project in Minot that seems very interesting is that Minot is selected as a location for an Artspace Development Project. The mission of Artspace Projects is to create, foster and preserve affordable space for artists and arts organizations. Artspace will look to create a facility in Minot that will encompass 50 thousand square feet. The project will consist of a minimum of twenty-five residential live/work spaces, with an occupancy preference for working artists, including, but not limited to, painters, photographers, sculptors, musicians, designers, craftspeople, performance and arts center space. This project places Minot in a unique position and opens the door to exciting possibilities.
Data from Dun and Bradstreet indicates that these “Arts-centric” or creative industries growth outpaced total U. S. business growth in the past year. (2004-2005) Overall U. S. business growth showed an increase of 3.8 percent while creative industries or “arts-centric” businesses (museums, symphonies, theaters, architecture, advertising, etc) grew by 5.5 percent. This multi-purpose facility for Minot will bring multi-faceted benefits for the arts and the economy of the community.

And Minot is developing to be a new oil city too ! The oil reserves called the Bakken Formation, is estimated as the largest reserves in North America ! This has brought with it many new companies to the Minot area. The first phase of the Energy Park has been completed, and work has begun on phase 2. Also developed in the same area north east of Minot is a new Ag Park.

The next census in Minot will be in 2010. It will be very interesting to see what the population is then, and how the city still expands. When will Minot have more people than we have in Skien ?

In Skien we are proud to be the sister city of Minot, and we hope to find areas of cooperation and expanding student exchange in the future !