SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio welcomes visitors from all over the country and the world every day.<\/p>\n
This week, the city is hosting visitors attending conferences that coincide with Fiesta.<\/p>\n
For many San Antonians, Fiesta is a big enough draw to bring people to the city, but is it big enough to draw and seal the deal for businesses to host their conferences or conventions?<\/p>\n
KSAT took that question to David Gonzalez with Visit San Antonio, a private nonprofit that focuses on bringing in tourism dollars and investments into San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot as much as you think,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
He explained that Fiesta and its history attract tourists to the city, but that the majority of the crowds are made up of people who live here.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez laid out the main attractions that businesses are drawn to. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, San Antonio\u2019s a great destination. Families, couples, single individuals coming (here are) looking for our great cultural amenities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said organizations also want \u201cthe walkability of our downtown, being able to stay in one of the many hotels in the central city district and just walking down the river walk to the convention center.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the biggest attraction he pointed to was San Antonians themselves \u2014 the people.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Antonio\u2019s great, friendly cultural population and really brings those people and really makes them see San Antonio as being completely different than cities across the country, which scores great for us,\u201d Gonzalez said. <\/p>\n
And first-time visitors KSAT spoke with confirmed it.<\/p>\n
Rdea Ouarhbi and Nacim Jhara are both in San Antonio for the first time, visiting from France. So far, they said they have enjoyed their interactions with people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people, the culture also is good, and what I love also it\u2019s like the mix of people,\u201d Jhara said.<\/p>\n
Ouarhbi echoed, \u201cThe people are really warm, and they are really easy to speak with. So, I think that\u2019s the thing that really was the best thing here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzalez said in addition to its people, the city offers its signature San Antonio experiences for honeymooners and explorers.<\/p>\n
Will McGriff is visiting San Antonio from out of state with his new bride as they celebrate their honeymoon. <\/p>\n
He said that after previously visiting Texas, he and his wife considered which destination would make their special occasion even more memorable, ultimately choosing San Antonio to be part of it.<\/p>\n
McGriff said, \u201cWe both talked about wanting to come somewhere that we could see and experience something that we haven\u2019t seen before and still be able to do all the fun things that we wanted to do.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added, \u201cSan Antonio and then the Hill Country, that was just exactly what we thought would be perfect. So that was what drove us to choose that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rob Williams and Paul Bean are taking in the Alamo City for a couple of days before heading to Bandera for a festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just did a tour of the Alamo, which was so cool,\u201d Bean said. <\/p>\n
Williams said this is his second visit to San Antonio and remembered experiencing sunnier weather during a previous walk along the city\u2019s iconic River Walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never been on the River Walk, so that was a highlight. San Antonio is a remarkable city,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez said what San Antonio as a whole has to offer brings families, businesses, and organizations and local events like Fiesta are just added attractions. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really an added amenity for our groups to be able to tell them about those great festivals we have throughout the year,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have so many great events across the year that groups really are able to book into and use it as an added amenity for them to come to San Antonio.<\/p>\n
He said Visit San Antonio\u2019s efforts help generate more than $24 billion in annual economic impact for the city\u2019s tourism industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Antonio, we\u2019re very lucky that we have a strong convention calendar in place,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are cautiously optimistic that we\u2019re gonna have a strong year for conventions as long as the groups hold up their usual booking pace of attendees registering for those conferences. We\u2019re looking to have a good year for San Antonio in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also expressed appreciation for the hospitality and kindness of San Antonians. <\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio welcomes visitors from all over the country and the world every day. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7185,82,84,83,3814,41474],"class_list":{"0":"post-261027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-fiesta","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","11":"tag-san-antonio-news","12":"tag-tourism","13":"tag-visit-san-antonio"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}