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Austin resident urges tourism materials to better reflect city’s parks, diversity
Summary
A District 10 resident told the Austin Tourism Commission that a convention-center funded magazine, the Insider’s Guide to Austin, underrepresents parks, families and certain racial groups in imagery and recommended contracting the Austin Chronicle to produce the guide while the convention center is closed.
Chris Flores, a resident of District 10, addressed the Austin Tourism Commission during the public-comment portion of the Sept. 10 meeting to criticize the Insider’s Guide to Austin, a magazine she said is funded by the convention center, produced by Visit Austin and subcontracted to Miles Partnership.
Flores said she counted images in the current magazine and found a scarcity of certain groups and of parks. “I counted 386 images of people, 19 or 5% were children, 10 or 2% had gray hair, 0% had Asian eye features, 15 or 3% had brown skin,” she said, and added that only two of the 27 pages featured parks and outdoor spaces.
Recommendation: Flores asked the commission to “experiment” by contracting the Austin Chronicle to produce an Austin Insider Guide while the convention center is closed, saying the Chronicle could better reflect “our real city, our humor, our spicy people, our creative goofiness, and most of all, the parks and waters we so revere.”
Commission response: Vice Chair Ed Bailey thanked Flores for the close read and said city entities and Visit Austin staff would track her comments.
Ending: Flores’ remarks were recorded during the public-comment portion of the meeting; no policy or procurement changes were decided at the Sept. 10 meeting.
