Nashville takes about 16.9 million visitors a year. That number on its own is not much use to you. Where they go is.
They concentrate
Most of those visitors end up on Broadway at some point. Free live music every day of the year, from the morning until three in the morning, and no ticket needed. That is why it sits at the top of the list in the earnings calculator.
The paid attractions, in order
The Country Music Hall of Fame takes about 1.6 million a year. The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere takes over 1.4 million, which makes it the top paid attraction in Middle Tennessee. Cheekwood reaches up to 435,000 in a peak year. The Grand Ole Opry House sees over 250,000 on daytime tours alone, before the evening crowds. Andrew Jackson's Hermitage sees about 190,000.
Small does not mean bad
The gap between 16.9 million and 190,000 looks decisive, and it is not the whole story. Somebody who drove out to the Hermitage planned that trip. People who plan a trip want a photograph of it. Broadway gives you volume; the quieter places give you people who already decided the day mattered.
What we do not know yet
These are annual figures. We do not have reliable season by season numbers, so we are not going to invent them. When we have them, they go in the calculator and this post gets updated.
