The $11.4 billion case for putting up with the crowds pouring into Austin this fall
October 5, 2026, Austin Business Journal
Fall is one of the best times to be in Austin. The weather finally cooperates. Football returns. Austin City Limits Music Festival, Formula 1 and the Austin Film Festival bring people here from across Texas and around the world. You can feel the city fill up.
There will be lines at favorite restaurants, more traffic around downtown and plenty of visitors trying to figure out which way to walk on the trail. I know the complaints because I have made a few of them, usually from a car that isn’t moving. I still hope we welcome visitors gladly. They’re here because Austin built something worth experiencing, and their visits support far more of our local economy than most people realize.
More than 30 million people visit Austin each year. Their spending generates an estimated $11.4 billion in economic impact and supports 151,700 local jobs. They represent hotel housekeepers, musicians, servers, chefs, rideshare drivers and the people who keep major events running.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is busier than it has ever been. June 2026 set a monthly record with more than 2.1 million passengers. Each arrival is a chance for a local business to earn a customer and for Austin to make an impression that travels home.
Tourism supports businesses that never describe themselves as part of the industry. A visitor in town for a conference may hire a local photographer, order flowers or host clients at an Austin restaurant. A family here for a football game may shop on South Congress, visit a museum and buy breakfast from a neighborhood taco shop before heading home.
Visitors also pay the hotel occupancy taxes that support programs Austinites value. The City of Austin’s fiscal year 2026 budget anticipated approximately $167 million in hotel tax revenue, including nearly $16 million for the Cultural Arts Fund. That part is often misunderstood. Texas law caps that support at 15% of hotel tax collections for the arts and another 15% for historic preservation, and Austin already allocates the maximum in both categories. The only way to grow arts funding here is to grow hotel tax collections, which happens when more rooms are booked.
Cities across the country compete for visitors, conventions, sporting events and meetings. Austin may have the music, food and personality people want, but someone still has to tell that story to leisure travelers or meeting planners comparing Austin with Nashville, Denver or New Orleans.
That competition is sharper right now. The Austin Convention Center closed in April 2025 for a $1.6 billion rebuild funded by hotel taxes and convention center revenue rather than property taxes. Steel is going up on the site, and the new building is expected to open for the 2029 spring festival season with 70% more rentable space. Until it opens, Austin has to keep booking events the city cannot host yet. Convention groups fill hotels midweek, when restaurants and retailers need traffic most.
Austin does not get chosen just because it is Austin. Someone has to make the case.
That is the work Tom Noonan and the team at Visit Austin do every day. ECPR Texas is proud to represent them, so I see this work up close.
They promote Austin around the world while staying grounded in what makes this city different. They bring major meetings and events to town and keep Austin in the national conversation. It is sophisticated economic development, even if we don’t always call it that.
They are also not selling a generic version of the city. They introduce visitors to the people and places that give Austin its character. Tom leads that work with real affection for this city. He understands that attracting visitors is only part of the job. The larger goal is creating benefits for the people who live and work here.
That matters this fall. Our hospitality businesses are preparing for some of their busiest weeks of the year, and many depend on a strong season to carry them through quieter months. Every hotel stay, restaurant bill and ticket purchase helps.
So when someone stops in the middle of the sidewalk to take a picture, we can give them a little grace. When they ask where to hear live music or find good barbecue, we can send them somewhere local. Their excitement about Austin is good for Austin.
To everyone visiting this fall: Welcome! We’re glad you are here.
Kristin Marcum is CEO of ECPR Texas, a civic impact communications firm based in Austin since 1995. The firm works with tourism, workforce, health care, education and philanthropic organizations across Texas. ECPR Texas uses this space to tell its clients’ stories, not its own
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