Galveston Islands businesses are gearing up for what they hope and expect to be a busy spring break.
“We’re very excited to have the beginning of the high season,” said Bubba’s bartender, Misty Smith.
Bubba’s and other local bars and restaurants along the strand like Shark Shack said there’s a boom in business around this time of year.
“We’re the playground for Houston and they really support us,” said the owner of Shark Shack, Allen Flores. “We just get a combination of things, we get a little cruise activity, we get people that are day trippers. But I know that the hotels really do well during spring break,”
Flores said businesses see a significant rise in revenue.
“Our business goes up probably an extra 50 percent during the week from a normal weekday, and on the weekends we probably double our income,” said Flores.
Emergency responders are also gearing up for the influx of visitors.
Peter Davis, the chief of the Galveston Island beach patrol said they expect anywhere between three to five hundred thousand people.
“So, what we do is we take the staff we have, we are going to pick the really busy areas and the areas that potentially could be dangerous like near a jetty, and if we have enough we’ll hit the beach parks and the rest of the beach,” Davis said.