CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — People have been hitting the beach this Spring Break, but officials said the early crowds look a little different than those of years passed.
"We had a very manageable first weekend," Port Aransas Police Chief Scott Burroughs said. "We have a whole bunch of families down here. We're not seeing the crowds of the college students and the high school students that we've seen in years past, but the beach has been pretty active."
Burroughs said they have had a steady influx of beach goers, but the beach is not full. Problems have mostly centered on alcohol violations.
"We've only made eight arrests the whole week so far, which is a pretty low number, particularly for Spring Break," Burroughs said.
However, what Burroughs has learned is that the crowds are expected to grow in the next week.
"We've been working with the Chamber and multiple businesses to try to get a gauge on what the crowd might be, and we're seeing an increasing trend with the rentals coming in as Spring Break increases and many of the facilities are actually sold out for the last weekend," Burroughs said.
"We are having some similar things we're seeing when it comes especially to the short-term rental market out on the Island," said Brett Oetting, President and CEO of Visit Corpus Christi.
Oetting said the indications are good for the last part of Spring Break, but even more importantly, the summer tourist season.
"Hotels are still not quite coming back to the same level quite yet, but we do think that that will happen during the summer time," Oetting said.
According to the latest Longwoods International Tracking study of American travelers, 81-percent plan to travel in the next six months -- an increase of 16-percentage points since mid-January and the highest level since the beginning of the pandemic last March. Experts believe the influx of COVID-19 vaccines is making people plan getaways that may have been delayed the past year because of the pandemic.
Oetting said that bodes well for the summer of 2021.
"All indications are showing that they want to go to outdoor communities. They want to go to communities that they feel like they can be safe and separate from other individuals, and that all bodes well for Corpus Christi, so from that standpoint we feel like we're going to have a summer that might even rival 2019, which you know, is pre-COVID," Oetting said.
More from 3News on KIIITV.com: