ARIZONA & MEXICO

non-U.S. citizens is assumed to be constant over time. Party size, by port and by travel mode, is assumed
unchanged. The destinations of crossers, by port and by mode of travel, are unchanged, e.g., the same
portions of vehicle crossers at the port of Nogales are assumed to visit/shop in Santa Cruz County, Pima
County and Maricopa County in 2013 as in 2007-08. Similarly, their geographical expenditure patterns
remain the same as they were in 2007-08. Destinations of pedestrian crossers also remain the same as
they were in the 2007-08 study. Only updated data on the number of border crossers, by port and by
mode, were available to use to compute a 2013 estimate. Since destination patterns varied across ports
and across mode of travel, using updated border crossing data, by port and by mode, results in changes
in expenditures by destination-county. The only assumption made regarding expenditures was the use
of the growth of Mexico’s per capita GDP in $U.S. to increase per party expenditures for all parties.
The geographic distribution of Mexican visitor expenditures has changed substantially over the years.
In the 1991 survey, the largest beneficiaries of Mexican border crossers were the three border counties,
with Santa Cruz receiving 39 percent of all expenditures, followed by Cochise County (23.9 percent) and
Yuma (19 percent). Since then, there have been dramatic shifts in the geographic distribution of
expenditures toward the Tucson and Phoenix metropolitan areas.
Beginning with the 2001 survey, Pima County received the largest share of Mexican visitor expenditures.
Expenditures in Pima County almost tripled between 1991 and 2001 and more than tripled between
2001 and 2007-08. Estimated expenditures in Pima County in 2013, which are based on the 2007-08
study, declined because of the fall in border crossings. The expenditure estimates for Maricopa County
grew 1800 percent between 2001 and 2007-08 and is associated with the dramatic increase in the
percent of visitor parties spending the night in Arizona. The decline in expenditures in Maricopa from
2007-08 to 2013 is again solely due to the decrease in border crossings.
Expenditures in Yuma grew steadily throughout the period from $130.6 million in 1991 to $282.2 million
in 2013, although its share of total expenditures from 19.0 to 12.5 percent. The year 2001 was a weak
year in expenditures for both Cochise and Santa Cruz Counties, because of both the terror attacks on
9/11 and crossing card changes that occurred in that same year that required all crossers to re-apply and
get updated cards. Aside from 2001, there was growth in expenditures in both Cochise and Santa Cruz
Counties between 1991 and 2007-08. Cochise fell 7 percent between the 2007-08 estimates and the
2013 estimates due to a modest fall in border crossings through the Port of Douglas. Santa Cruz county
expenditures, however, fell by 42 percent between the 2007-08 estimates and the 2013 estimates. This
decrease was due to the extremely large decline in crossings at the Nogales ports of entry, particularly
the dramatic decrease in pedestrian traffic (Figures 2 and 3).
APRIL 2016 • ARIZONA TOWN HALL • ARIZONA & MEXICO • 70