Canadian tourism strategy development and branding agency Resonance Consultancy Ltd

took a new approach to evaluating US cities for their desirability as destinations for business and pleasure.

Traditionally cities are judged for their potential for tourist development mostly by examining how many visitors a place has and the money that is generated there. The Resonance study took a different approach. They instead used 16 different criteria to judge a city’s value as a potential place for tourist development. Those data points included things like how many major league sports teams that were housed there; direct flights to the city; hotel rooms; and on-line reviews such as Yelp and Trip Advisor.

It is not a surprise that Los Angeles and New York came in second and first place, respectively. Four major Texas cities also made the list, but in a somewhat unexpected order: Dallas ranked third; Houston came in twelfth; San Antonio, 21st; and in 23rd place was Austin.