City sprucing up Downtown San Antonio, paying rental fee for massive conference
SAN ANTONIO - A tourism conference coming to San Antonio this weekend is so important, according to city officials, they're spending $3 million dollars to spruce up downtown.
The city is using some of that public money to rent the convention center for the trade show.
Crews have been putting out flowers along the streets, planting new grass at Travis Park, and giving lamp poles around town a fresh coat of paint.
Not to mention new lighting along the Riverwalk and to brighten up the Torch of Friendship sculpture.
Tourists say they're impressed with the results.
“The city is beautiful man, especially that Riverwalk. You ever been down there? Man, that's my favorite," said Taver McEachron who was visiting from Florida.
The city is completing the projects in time for the U.S. Travel Association's IPW Conference, a gathering of five thousand travel agents, tour operators and travel media.
City leaders say a good showing could lead to 395,000 international visitors to the Alamo City.
“The economic impact will be more than $600 million over the next three years," said Marc Anderson, President and CEO of Visit San Antonio.
The projections are from a marketing survey measuring the impact of past conferences in other cities. The $3 million being spent by the city comes from the hotel occupancy tax, which is paid by visitors on their hotel bills.
On the list of expenses, the city provided to News 4 was $450,000 spent to cover the rental cost of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
“There is a credit that we set aside to offset some of the expenses, that's not necessarily unusual when we attract large conventions," said San Antonio City Manager Erik Walsh.
The city says IPW will be covering ancillary costs for the conference.
Plus, San Antonio is asking the state to reimburse $1.1 million to the city under a program that encourages events which bring in sales tax revenue.
The city's preparation for the conference also listed screening to cover up construction projects, and "homeless response", which the city says focuses on cleaning up encampments and outreach to let the homeless know shelter beds are available.
The city says it will benefit from a $13 million economic impact just from the five thousand or so people attending the conference who will be staying at hotels and eating at local restaurants.