Big business in birds

Houston stands poised to tap in to the market for tourists armed with binoculars.

If you drive around Galveston next week, you might encounter gaggles of tourists visiting the island for an attraction all too many of us overlook.

These visitors are a pleasant crowd of mostly older folks casually dressed for the outdoors. They’re often spotted carrying expensive binoculars and cameras equipped with huge lenses. And they’ve got money.

Next week, birdwatchers — they prefer to call themselves “birders” — will flock to the island for FeatherFest 2018, an ecotourism event that attracts visitors from across the nation and around the world. Last year, they traveled from 22 states and as far away as Canada and Australia, drawn by the plethora of migratory birds flying through the Texas Gulf Coast.

As Houston tries to lure visitors with everything from its restaurants to its museums to that giant metal bean on Montrose, Galveston has learned how to tap into the big money in birds. Odd as it may seem, birdwatching is a lucrative niche of the tourism industry. Houston should take advantage of this springtime natural resource by marketing our area as a mustsee mecca for birders.

If you picture birdwatchers as a bunch of nebbish homebodies, think again. About 18 million Americans take this hobby seriously enough to travel away from home on birding trips, according to a 2011 study conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A disproportionate number of them are retirees with higher-than-average incomes. That study estimated they spent a whopping $15 billion on food, lodging, transportation and other travel expenses related to birdwatching.

Houston is perfectly poised to exploit this multi-billion-dollar market. The upper Texas coast is renowned as a bird lover’s paradise, a crash pad for countless species of migratory birds crossing the Gulf of Mexico. On High Island, birdwatchers can peer into a rookery crowded with nesting egrets, great blue herons and roseate spoonbills. At the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, they can witness the mating dances of endangered whooping cranes.

Meanwhile, the Bayou Greenways 2020 initiative promises to draw even more migratory birds into the inner city. Tom Bacon, the head of the Houston Parks Board, enthusiastically calls it the “Bayou Flyways” initiative. By planting vegetation that will attract birds to 3,000 acres of greenspace along our bayous, Houston will serve up a buffet attracting more migratory birds into the heart of Houston.

Birders are accustomed to visiting remote places and sleeping in rugged accommodations, but Bacon envisions Houston becoming an upscale alternative. He foresees bird enthusiasts from around the world traveling here to stay in fivestar hotels and dine at great restaurants, spending their days spotting the migrating species that will nest and feed along the city’s bayous.

“Houston in April and May becomes the birding capital of the world,” Bacon hopes.

That will happen only if Houston aggressively markets itself as a prime destination for birdwatchers. As chicks hatch in the nests of migratory birds along the gulf coast this spring, and as visitors sporting binoculars and big cameras gather in Galveston, we suggest our fair city consider yet another tourism slogan: “Houston: It’s for the birds.”

The target date for the Bayou Greenways initiative is 2020, but the bumper stickers could be ready for next year’s FeatherFest.