The Park Board of Trustees, the public board tasked with developing tourism and maintaining Galveston’s public beaches, hired AngelouEconomics to conduct a tourism economic impact study in 2008.

The Park Board of Trustees, the public board tasked with developing tourism and maintaining Galveston’s public beaches, hired AngelouEconomics to conduct a tourism economic impact study in 2008. The project began in August 2008, and was interrupted by Hurricane Ike, which directly struck Galveston in September. The original scope of the project focused on understanding the tourism economy of the island city of 65,000, including the effects of leisure tourism, eco-tourism, historic tourism, and convention and business meetings. In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the project team quickly refocused its work to support public rebuilding efforts through innovative estimates of the economic impact of Galveston’s beaches, and the overall impact of tourism on Galveston’s economy. In the months since the study has been completed, public officials have used AngelouEconomics’ assessment of tourism’s impact on the local economy to lobby state and federal officials for funding to rebuild public beaches, restore public infrastructure, and to advocate for the importance of coastal economies to Texas’s attractiveness to businesses.