Over the weekend, as many as 1 million people could descend on the Lone Star State ahead of Monday's total solar eclipse. Cities along the path of totality, which runs from Eagle Pass and Del Rio through the Hill Country and into the Dallas-Fort Worth, are planning festivals and events in an effort to capitalize.
So what kind of economic impact will the eclipse-driven tourism have on the state's economy?
"Whatever the impact is, it's a moment in time. It's really brief," SMU economics professor Dr. Cullum Clark said. "Then people turn around and go back home. So inherently, those kinds of things are not particularly huge impact. That's like when Dallas hosted the Super Bowl or something. It's a huge number of people. Same thing with the World Cup coming up in several years. It'll be a ton of people, but they'll kind of come in and they'll go."
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Still, for cities in the path of totality, like Del Rio, the eclipse creates a unique opportunity to welcome thousands of people to town.
"Just participating in this eclipse as a business, you can get a 20% increase in revenue that whole weekend," the Del Rio Chamber's Bethany Gonzalez said. "So we had a few community meetings, and we kind of just kind of encouraged small businesses, 'Hey, this is the time where you want to have some specials. You want to have that sidewalk sale because visitors are going to be here. This is a great time to promote your business.'"
Music is a big part of eclipse festivals this weekend, too. Rick Redmond, who organized the Cosmic Cowboy Eclipse Festival in Hillsboro, said they made a conscious effort to book artists like Pat Green and Kevin Fowler.
Solar Eclipse 2024
"Most of the festivals are more, I would say DJ-driven, like, rap music, techno music," he said. "We did a country western thing because Hillsboro is pretty much a country town. It's not far from the big cities, but it's still a blue-collar country town."
In February, Bell County Judge David Blackburn made headlines when he preemptively declared a state of emergency due to the expected influx of people to view the eclipse.
"One of the reasons is, that we submitted with that declaration a list of resources which are primarily equipment that we might need, or see a need for. And most of that is traffic control equipment," he said. "The declaration allowed us to submit those lists early, and hopefully get the state in a position that if those resources are available from the state and if we need those, then those can be, acquired, much more efficiently."
