First off, Houston does not draw its "fair share" of tourists. In the behind-the-pay-wall HoustonChronicle.com article I linked to this was clearly spelled out.
(Hopefully, the Houston Chronicle takes no issue with my fair use quoting from their story but, to be safe, here's the full link again)
Tourism Board offers aggressive agenda for drawing visitors. Erin Mulvaney, LM Sixel, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Already, most of the visitors to Houston are classified as leisure travelers. Of the 14.8 million who came to Houston last year, about 9 million were leisure travelers while the others came on business. The majority of visitors come from inside Texas, including Dallas/Forth Worth, Austin and San Antonio.
By comparison, Chicago gets 42 million visitors annually, New York City attracts 54 million and San Antonio 31 million.
Clearly, there is a gap. I believe this gap is driven, in large part, by Houston steadfastly failing to recognize the attractions that it does have in a continually blind effort to make itself into something it is not. The facts are these. San Antonio has the Riverwalk, the Alamo and El Mercado. Chicago has the El, Wrigley Field and a host of Frank Lloyd Wright homes among other things. New York has Times Square, Rockafeller Plaza, Central Park and (to be honest) most of the City including Long Beach. Houston has none of these things, and it's improbable to think that throwing additional money to "build attractions" (as some in the comments suggest) is ever going to build 'stuff' that has near the tourism appeal that the comparison cities do.
Let's face it, the New York Library has more tourist appeal than does anything Houston can offer. The library for goodness' sake.
What Houston does have, as I've mentioned before, is a business climate that brings in business travelers, the Galleria that brings in leisure travelers (primarily, as mentioned in the article, from Mexico) and conventions which bring in business travelers as well.
What I think Houston is missing is a viable marketing push to tie all of this together. Here's the rub. Tourists are not going to flock to Houston to check out Mongoose vs. Cobra no matter how edgy we presume their manifesto to be. The fact is, in most major cities, there are bars just as hipster as this popping up almost everywhere. Nor are they going to spend their vacation dollars to check out Miller Outdoor Theatre or, unless they're from somewhere really small, The Houston Zoo. You can up the Houston advertising budget to a Million Billion Dollars, bring back Jordy Tollett in his prime and it's just not going to happen. I don't care what squishy marketing campaign you dream up or how many celebrities you have working (for a fee) to sell the City.
However, what the people at Houston First seem to be chronically missing is that the true driver for families coming to Houston lies in the fact that they have something to do while the bread-winner is in business meetings. In other words: Houston: Where business gets done and families have fun.
(OK, I'm sorry, I'm an accountant not an ad designer.)
Let's face it. All of the things we LIKE about Houston are things that people would like to, were a family to come along on a business trip. Their are museums and parks and shopping and outdoor markets and educational opportunities for the kiddies and brewery tours and (with a small drive) boardwalks and amusement rides and battlefield memorials and the Strand and Space Center: Houston and a host of other things that would allow a family to while away the hours why Mommy or Daddy spend the day cooped up in an office attending meetings with bad coffee and dry, catered chicken with some almost identifiable sauce.
If one partner is in meetings then the other partner can go shopping in the Galleria, or they can go take a brewery tour, or (on most Thursdays) catch the early afternoon Astros game. If they have kids they can visit the museums and go shopping in the Galleria, at night after the meetings they can go out and dine and (if the kiddies are taken care of) hit up bars like Mongoose vs. Cobra or the Anvil or a host of other locations. They might even have so much fun that they can stay through Saturday and drive out to visit Kemah, or NASA.
The important thing to realize is that all of this is on top of their primary reason for visiting Houston in the first place i.e. getting business done.
Yes, the numbers in the study suggest that a majority of travelers through the Houston Airport System are here on leisure. I'm willing to bet that many of them are here specifically to either shop the Galleria, or rent a car and drive somewhere else. How many people do you see in Houston, especially downtown Houston, just hanging around wishing that some attractions would be built so they would have something touristy to do? The answer? Not many. And there are even less that come here to ride the DangerTrain, although they don't realize that they could be missing out on one of the most Houston of things: Dodge Train.
Here's the thing. None of what I'm talking about here involves 'increasing the budget' or 'making a bigger push' to try and get people to come to Houston. The City already has the resources and existing attractions in place. Granted, this might mean that many of the Houston First employment positions and consulting contracts would suddenly become redundant, but there's plenty of work to go around.
Maybe some of those consultants could be persuaded to bring the family along next time as well?
