How is the tourism Industry in Houston compared to Dallas? (San Antonio: houses, theater)

[marcopolo2000]

While I'm sure most Americans wouldnt choose to visit either for vacation, Dallas wins when it comes to tourism over Houston. There are simply more things to do interms of "tourists". DFW has the original Six Flags, the State Fair,Jerry-World, the Cowboys,more water parks, the JFK element,etc. The only thing Houston has that Dallas doesnt (when it comes to attracting tourists) is NASA and the city does a crappy job of promoting that.

I dont know why Austin is even in this discussion. Hands down, San Antonio is THE destination city of Texas. I've never heard of Austin being much of a draw when it comes to tourism.

[marcopolo2000]

Originally Posted by blkgiraffe

Lets not forget the Texas Relays for Austin.

That was pretty much the only time I've visited Austin.

[marcopolo2000]

You can't use Galveston to bolster Houston's non-existant tourism industry. The island is 50 miles away from Houston and stands alone when it comes to tourism. It has enough hotel rooms to accomodate its tourists. Galveston has done a great job at preserving its history,adding new attractions, and building its cruise ship industry. Both Houston and Dallas should take notes when it comes to preserving history.

[dallasboi]

Originally Posted by marcopolo2000

You can't use Galveston to bolster Houston's non-existant tourism industry. The island is 50 miles away from Houston and stands alone when it comes to tourism. It has enough hotel rooms to accomodate its tourists. Galveston has done a great job at preserving its history,adding new attractions, and building its cruise ship industry. Both Houston and Dallas should take notes when it comes to preserving history.

Gentrification is like a plague.

[HtownLove]

The OP is asking about an Industry and Industry = Dollars and Houston by Far brings in the most dollars in Texas.
Dallas is second and San Antonio is a distant third.

Industry also= jobs. Again Houston is the leader in this Tourism related jobs, Dallas is second, and SA is third.

The biggest tourism Sectors in Texas were as follows
Dining- 33 percent of visitors
Shopping- 25% of visitors
Entertainment- 22 %
Sightseeing- 12%

San Antonio may be big in the sightseeing department, but it is a small piece of the pie to begin with.

The Galleria is by far the biggest Tourist stop in Texas with 30M of the 198M visitors to Texas in 2010.

In terms of sightseeing The Alamo was the most visited, followed by Galveston Island, then The Hill Country. The Top visited attraction in DFW was the Fort Worth Zoo coming in at number 8, just ahead of the Riverwalk at 9.

The most visited in Dallas was the Texas State Fair at number 11.

Houston accounts for about 17% of the all the tourist related employment in Texas compared to about 11% for Dallas and 9% for SA.

Visitors Spent 15.6B in Houston last year. 10.4 was spent in Dallas and 7B in SA.

6.8B was spent in Hotels in Houston, 5.2B in Dallas and 4.3B in SA

In terms of Retail. 1.53B was spent on retail in Houston, 1.48M in Dallas, and 853M in SA.

Surprisingly Earnings in FW are higher than in Dallas with 2.7B and 2.4B respectively. But Dallas has slightly more workers than FW.

[BevoLJ]

Htown, very interesting stats. I have tried to find such stats in the past and have have had a hard time. Where did you get them?

[annie_himself]

It should be called the visitor industry instead.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

Htown, very interesting stats. I have tried to find such stats in the past and have have had a hard time. Where did you get them?

You would prolly not trust them if you found out where. They are from Perry's office.

Houston does a whole lot better on attracting visitor dollars than expected. They are not spent on Riverwalks, or floating down the River, but think of it if 100,000K tourists floated down Buffalo Bayou how much money do you think they would spend? I would not very much. If the Bayou was converted to a RiverWalk and 100K people walked downn it how much would they spend? Not much. Lots of people float down the Guadeloupe or Walk the Riverwalk in San Antonio but the MOney is really spent in the restaurants. So even though Houston doesn't have as Nice a Riverwalk, we still rake in more cash because we have the people and the restaurants. A nice Riverwalk would be gravy but it is not needed to rake in the dough.

Houston's improvements would only make it more attractive and earn more visitors. Houston is the only City in Texas in the top ten most visitors in the US. With improvements, maybe a nice amusement park, and better marketing we would pass ATL to become the 3rd most visited city in the South (After Orlando and Miami)

Originally Posted by annie_himself

It should be called the visitor industry instead.

whats the difference?

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

You would prolly not trust them if you found out where. They are from Perry's office.

Ewwww! lol. Aggie math. =(

Kidding, but seriously I gave it a look at it is pretty interesting.

One thing I noticed is that it splits up DFW into two separate parts with the DFW Airport, Six Flags over Texas Texas Rangers, and Jerryworld (Superbowl, Dallas Cowboys) being in FW's numbers rather than Dallas. To compare Dallas to Houston while much of Dallas' number are in Ft Worth rather than Dallas isn't really an accurate comparison. I mean like sure the Super Bowl and the Dallas Cowboys aren't actually in Dallas, but those numbers should be included into their metro numbers. And Dallas should get at least a share of the numbers from DFW airport. Houston isn't losing any of its numbers to other metros. It is even getting Galveston's numbers (as it probably should be). Like looking at the jobs created numbers most of Ft Worth is in Travel. Ft Worth even has more travel jobs than the Houston-Galveston metro does, and Austin has more than Dallas does. lol Those two things should seem quite silly. Ft Worth and Austin are great towns to visit, but no where near being in the same league as Dallas or Houston. None of their numbers should be exceeding them.

Here is what I found:

I'll do both, include and separate DFW. Just remember FW gets the Airport, Jerryworld, Six Flags and the Ballpark.

Visitor Spending: (Millions)
DFW: $19,563
Houston: $15,577
Dallas: $10,455
Ft Worth: $9,108
San Antonio: $7,053
Austin: $4,974

Jobs Created: (Thousands)
DFW: 150.5
Houston: 117.2
Dallas: 87.0
Ft Worth: 63.5
San Antonio: 62.5
Austin: 47.8

Like you can remove the Airport from Ft Worth and it basically cuts spending in FW in half. It has $4,596 million in destination spending (just below Austin) but $4,512 in (other travel) spending giving it a total of $9,108 in spending. At least a part of that travel spending should be going to Dallas which has only $853 million in travel spending (Love Field). And aside from that $4.5 billion from DFW Airport that is given to FW part of the revenue for the Dallas Cowboys and Jerryworld events, Rangers or Six Flags should probably also be attributed to Dallas rather than just in the $4,596 million of Ft Worth's destination spending.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

Like you can remove the Airport from Ft Worth and it basically cuts spending in FW in half.

was wondering why FW was so high.

Anyway from the data you can see how ignorant posters who Say the only tourism industry is in SA. SA is a distant 3rd to Houston and Dallas