PORT ARANSAS, Texas — Spring break is here and local businesses in Port Aransas are prepared to take on a huge wave of tourists.
Port "A" Creamery manager Jennifer De La Garza says this is the time of year where small, local business thrive.
"This boosts our economy," De La Garza said. "This is what we wait for every year is for Spring Break, Summer to happen. This is where we thrive off of these times."
"Every Spring Break after COVID, every year has improved and gotten better. I think Port A has kind of gotten their name out and it's just grown in population, so we get bigger and better crowds every Spring Break," she added.
Just next to Port "A" Creamery is Port "A" Carts. With more people making their way to spend their vacations in the town every year, owner Trey Smiley says that's the reason he decided to open up his own rental business.
"In the beginning, there was just a handful of cart companies. I'd say maybe 200 tops on the island of the number of carts that we had. We were always sold out. There were just people wanting more, so in the last five years we've expanded it. We now have 27 cart companies on this island," Smiley said.
Over at Bron's Beach Carts and Backyard, Operations Director Jimmy Jam says it's easy to tell when the spring breakers have arrived.
"It's hard to get around with traffic. It takes me ten minutes just to get out of the parking lot," he said.
Jam has lived in Port Aransas for 14 years and has seen his share of tourism waves. Come early next week, he says he's expecting to see tens of thousands of people on the island. He says his team is ready to serve any tourist that comes their way.
"Monday, it's on. There's only 3,000 people that live here, and we'll over 100,000 people a day. This is kind of a test of what we're going to get in the summer, so everybody should be ready. I don't know if they're ready, but we're ready," he said.
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