By: Stephanie Esquivel | From: News4SA
SAN ANTONIO - Organizers said Holidays on Houston Street is returning to San Antonio for the foreseeable future.
“We’re so excited because this is really now going to be a legacy event for the City of San Antonio for our residents and the folks within the regional area that we’re going to be experiencing for the next hundred-plus years,” said Marc Anderson, President of Visit San Antonio.
The City of San Antonio, Visit San Antonio, and Centro San Antonio will continue to team up and host Holidays on Houston Street for years to come.
The festivities come with a price tag of about $800,000. According to the assistant City Manager of San Antonio, Lori Houston, none of that money comes from taxpayers and is a much-needed investment for businesses in the area.
“This is about downtown businesses getting a boost for Christmas. We’ve had a couple of rough years starting with COVID, then you had individuals leave downtown. We really want to make sure that people have a reason to come downtown and spend money,” said Houston.
In 2023 Holidays on Houston Street brought in close to $700,000 to the local economy, and this year all three partnering organizations are working to make that return even larger.
“Last year we completely underwrote the vendor booths because we wanted people to come into the experience and understand what it could be. We are monetizing that a little bit, we’re charging for the booth space,” said Trish DeBerry, President of Centro San Antonio.
Parts of Houston Street are closed down due to major road construction and nearby businesses told us that’s really slowing down foot traffic, but last year, Holidays on Houston Street gave them a spike in revenue.
“Last year was great with it, we had a line out the door going around the building. It was nonstop movement, I could barely keep up,” said Theresa Bowen, General Manager of Cookie Plug San Antonio.