Visit South Padre staff presented the monthly operations and marketing report, detailing recent event attendance, upcoming events, website and communications updates, a new hire for sales, and public-relations coverage.

Luis Rios, event experience coordinator, reviewed recent attendance numbers: the indoor Kite Fest drew about 1,137 attendees and the Double Causeway Cross about 1,243. Upcoming events listed for April included the Fool's Run (estimated 400 attendees), the SPI Crawfish Festival (estimated 1,500 on April 12), a Semana Santa Grupo on April 19 (estimated 3,000) and Easter fireworks over the bay on April 20. Rios said the in-house SPI Crawfish Festival is intended to involve local businesses and community partners.

Staff described community outreach partnerships for the Crawfish Festival, including animal-rescue groups and local restaurants assisting with cooking and logistics. Rios said the festival is one of four in-house produced events intended to celebrate the community and engage local businesses.

On staffing, Visit South Padre introduced Kelly Callier as the new director of sales; Callier said she brings more than 25 years of hotel-sales experience and is joining from Las Vegas. Myra Nunez reported group-sales metrics for February: 15 leads with potential room nights of 3,090, 2,745 contracted room nights, and 19 actualized events.

Denise Villalobos, social media and international affairs specialist, reported social media growth in February with impressions up 18% and Instagram surpassing 100,000 followers. PR highlights included coverage by National Geographic and Texas Highways, and Sea Turtle Inc.’s new hospital received national attention; staff said those features supported destination exposure.

Mauricio Cervantes, website and data specialist, said the new Visit South Padre website was on track for an April 28 launch and staff are syncing content from the current site. Cervantes also reported rapid growth in SMS sign-ups: he said opt-ins rose sharply during spring break, at times reaching about 2,500 sign-ups, with a current general list size above 1,200. The SMS program sends twice-weekly updates to subscribers and is offered at no charge to local partners who want event promotion.

Marketing staff described a partnership opportunity with Austin FC and Pantalone's Tequila (owner referenced) to run a beach clean-up on Earth Day and related promotion; staff said Austin FC will bring employees to help and partners will promote the event on social channels.

Staff also reported on a Greenhouse site visit during spring break, outreach to the chamber of commerce’s Coffee and Conversation program, and visitor surveying: staff said they collected more than 600 surveys from families and college students during spring break to inform future marketing. Finally, the board heard that U.S. News & World Report named South Padre Island the No. 1 beach in Texas, an accolade staff planned to promote through PR channels.

No formal board action was recorded on the monthly report item; it was presented for information and discussion.