Waco Visitor Intern

Destination Waco, in partnership with Solimar International, is developing
Waco Forward:
Our Destination Strategy
, a five-year strategy to guide the future of Waco’s visitor economy and improve the visitor experience.

The Visitor Experience Research Intern will support this effort primarily by conducting in-person Visitor Experience Intercept Surveys at popular tourism attractions, events, and other high-traffic visitor locations throughout Waco. The intern will engage directly with visitors, invite them to complete a brief survey, and help collect feedback about their trip, experiences, and perceptions of Waco. Survey findings will help inform recommendations for Waco Forward:
Our Destination Strategy.

• Visit popular tourism attractions, events, and visitor areas throughout Waco to conduct in-person Visitor Experience Intercept Surveys.
• Proactively approach visitors in a friendly and professional manner and invite them to participate in a brief survey.
• Clearly explain the purpose of the survey and answer basic questions about the research.
• Collect survey responses using a smartphone, tablet, QR code, or other provided survey tools.
• Help collect responses across a variety of locations, days, and times to ensure a broad representation of Waco visitors.
• Track survey collection activity, including locations visited, hours worked, and number of completed surveys.
• Coordinate with Destination Waco and Solimar International on priority survey locations and collection schedules.
• Share observations and recurring themes heard from visitors that may provide additional insight into the Waco visitor experience.
• Provide support for other tourism research and strategic planning activities as needed.
• Strong interpersonal and verbal communication skills.
• Friendly, outgoing, and comfortable initiating conversations with people you do not know.
• Professional and courteous when interacting with visitors, tourism businesses, and attraction staff.
• Dependable and able to work independently with limited on-site supervision.
• Organized and attentive to detail when collecting and tracking survey responses.
• Comfortable using smartphones, tablets, QR codes, and online survey platforms.
• Interest in tourism, hospitality, marketing, communications, research, business, planning, or community development.
• Familiarity with Waco and its major visitor attractions is a plus.
• Bilingual English/Spanish communication skills are a plus.
• Current college or university student.
• Comfortable approaching and engaging members of the public in an in-person setting.
• Ability to work independently at visitor locations throughout Waco.
• Reliable transportation to assigned tourism attractions, events, and other survey locations.
• Ability to use web-based survey tools.
• Ability to spend several hours at a time walking, standing, and interacting with visitors.
• Availability to conduct survey collection during a mix of weekdays and weekends, based on visitor traffic and survey needs.
• Access to and comfort using a personal iPad or tablet for mobile data collection is a plus.

This internship is paid ($20/hour). Time commitment is anticipated to be approximately 30 hours total over the engagement from October – December 2026, with flexibility in scheduling.