Fiscal Notes (Texas Comptroller newsletter)
November 2005
Two Wheels Across Texas
State promotes bicycle tourism trails
By Clint Shields
Excerpts:
It can take a long time to drive to different tourist destinations in a state as big as Texas. State lawmakers are trying to encourage Texans and visitors to tour more of the state by bicycle, an area in which Texas and the United States lag far behind other states and nations, according to the Texas Bicycle Coalition (TBC).
Bicycle tourism generates as much as $193 million annually in Florida, and more than $66 million a year in Maine, according to Robin Stallings, director of TBC. Those figures pale in comparison to countries like England and France, where annual revenues from bicycle tourism top $1 billion, he said. While there are no estimates on how much money bicycle tourism generates in Texas, the state is ripe with opportunities to cash in on an untapped market, Stallings said.
“The infrastructure for it already exists, and the citizens of Texas have largely paid for it,” Stallings said. “Our [farm-to-market] and [ranch-to-market] road systems are just an incredible start to this kind of tourism.”
For the full article, visit the Texas Comptroller website.
