This past year with the borders close to tourism, many Rio Grande Valley cities have lost almost all of their tourist income. Now Space exploration site, SpaceX, is growing and so has tourism and housing for new employees.
Many space exploration fanatics are flocking to Boca Chica Village for the orbital launch of the fully stacked Starship SN20 and Super Heavy B4.
SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk has asked for 500 more employees to temporarily move to South Texas, and local business owners say they are starting to benefit from tourism and new industry.
“We’ve seen a big uptick in SpaceX employees here so that’ been really cool, so I’ve noticed that in Brownsville as well a lot of business have said they have a lot of SpaceX employees,” said Christian Zanca, owner of the outdoor bar and food truck park, The Broken Sprocket.
According to the City of Brownsville hotel occupancy tax for the 2020 fiscal year, the city lost over $200,000 in revenue due to the pandemic, but for January through March of 2021, the city of Brownsville said that they are seeing a slow increase in tourism.
One hotel in Brownsville called America’s Best Value Inn said that they are booked up to 90% and most of the customers are SpaceX employees, but they said that they hope this trend continues to make up for the business lost in the pandemic.
