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CVAB: Spring Break, Should the Focus be on Families?

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(Photo by Author)

 

 

The topic of discussion during the last Convention and Visitors Advisory Board meeting was 'Spring Break.'  Some have fears about too many visitors coming for Spring Break during the current pandemic, while many marketers are carefully planning for what is traditionally of the busiest times for SPI.

 

Late last year, City Council passed a motion to suspend all beach permits until April 15, 2021, to cover Spring Break and the Easter holiday.  Mayor Patrick McNulty announced that he was asked to put it on the agenda, because it was time for people to start planning or not planning what to do for spring break, since at the time there had yet to be a vaccine and several universities cancelled Spring Break.

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Moving forwarding to just weeks before Spring Break, during the public comments and announcements portion of the meeting, CVB Director Ed Caum gave anonymous input during a presentation of Island Partners' strategy of Spring Break 2021.

 

The City asked Caum to call around to try to get a consensus of what Spring Break will look like since, according to Caum, "None of us have crystal balls."

 

Some anonymous Island Partners are marketing specifically to past visitors and mostly families in San Antonio, Austin, as well as past guests. "At this time, the County parks have no activities planned and no events are currently scheduled at the Amphitheater, the event center, or Isla Blanca," said an anonymous Island Partner.

 

Nervous, another anonymous partner mentioned being afraid of too many visitors, but is focusing on families.  "I have multiple entities that can come close down my business if lots of people show up."  Some anonymous partners are even seeing a change in (Travel Source) visitor origin that they have never seen before, for example east Texas.

 

In an attempt to cater to the Spring Break visitor demographic, Clayton Brashear, owner of Clayton's Beach Bar, said, "I'm kind of in the same boat that everybody else is. What do you want to see?  Who is our customer?  We (Clayton's) are a secondary business, the hotels bring them, and we sell to them."  Afraid of getting shut down or TABC taking his license Brashear said, "I don't want to go there. I don't want to make headlines."

 

[NOTE: Island Matters reached out to businesses in January about Spring Break 2021 plans and received no responses.]

 
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