CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Thousands of students from across the state will be heading to town before we even kick off Spring Break and it all starts in a couple of days!
The city is hosting a huge leadership conference for the Business Professionals of America, Texas Association.
It's one of many conferences planned this year that are said to also bring big business to the local economy.
Preparations are underway at the American Bank Center to welcome an expected 4,000 students who will descend on the city for the four-day conference.
Estefania Rico Arambula is the association's state president.
She said while students will be here to compete, they're also looking forward to exploring what the city has to offer.
"The USS Lexington, probably the Selena museum, the aquarium," Arambula said.
From local attractions, shops, and all the good restaurants, the students will be spending their money.
This one conference alone is expected to bring in a projected $2 million to the local economy.
"They're going to make a lot of money," she said. "I will tell you that students are going to dine everywhere the meals, the mall."
Hotel rooms are also filling up.
"This weekend, I think we are already sold out," said Michael Islava, the director of sales and marketing at Omni Corpus Christi.
Islava and staff are preparing for the influx of visitors.
"It's more of a revenue impact for the community with the taxes we collect, they're also these younger groups coming in, they're future visitors," he said.
The folks with Visit Corpus Christi said this conference is one of 40 planned this year, that doesn't include all the sporting events that keep visitors coming to the city year round outside of the normal summer tourism season.
"Right now we're in February, not quite Spring or Summer where tourist flock down, but the city still see an influx in visitation thanks to business and conventions offered," said America Segura, the director of communications for Visit Corpus Christi.
Skills USA, another big conference is also expected to bring in thousands of students in a few weeks and another economic boost.
The hope is that these students come back to the city and next time bring their families and friends.
"We also have a unique opportunity to showcase the offerings of our destination talking about students that are going to be seeing our beautiful seawall, tell their parents, 'Hey I went to Corpus Christi maybe we should think about going their for vacation,'" said Segura.
This is the seventh year the state leadership conference for the Business Professionals of America has been held in Corpus Christi.
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