Wonder

Research Outline

Prepared for Tegan C. | Delivered July 15, 2019

Laredo, TX Demographics

Goals

To determine the types of people who are visiting Laredo, Texas as a precursor to determine what they are doing there. Demographics desired include age, gender, income, employment, ethnicity, marital status, and where the visitors are coming from.

Early Findings

Our preliminary research indicates that demographics for Laredo, TX are going to be challenging to find. We note that in 2014, there were 3,195 followers of the English Twitter account for Laredo and 3,092 followers of the Spanish Twitter account for Laredo and that due to its location on the border of Texas and Mexico, the city does quite a bit of tourism marketing in Mexico. We did find a breakdown of visitor spending in Laredo from 2000 to 2017 on page 67 of the Dean Runyon report on The Economic Impact of Travel on Texas, which seems to provide the information on what tourists are doing in Laredo, TX, but demographics are not a part of this report.

We also found an older presentation from the City of Laredo that shows in 2014 that shows there were 1,500,000 visitors to Laredo, Texas and offered the following insights:
 1,206,798 visitors went to Laredo, TX for leisure.
 438,867 visitors went to Laredo, TX for business.
The total amount of money spent in Laredo, TX by leisure visitors was $394,153,452 and the total visitor spending was $577 million.
The average amount of money spent during their time in Laredo, TX was $1,281.00, and more than half ($636) was spent on shopping.
The report also concluded that shopping is the number one reason for visiting Laredo, TX.
The Economic Impact of Travel on Texas report provided additional insights on visitor spending:
In 2015, visitor spending declined by 6.3% to $539 million.
In 2016, visitor spending declined even more to $520 million before seeing a jump back up to $568 million in 2017, a 9.3% increase year-over-year.
OTHER PRELIMINARY FINDINGSAccording to the Webb County, Texas Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 2017, stores in Laredo are "continually trying to attract visitors from Mexico."
Specifically, the tourism division in Laredo tries to attract visitors from Monterrey and Mexico City, Mexico.
On a daily basis, "thousands of visitors from Mexico flock to Laredo to buy clothing and electronics and half the price of what it would cost them in Mexico."