COLLEGE STATION, Texas — It's winter break at Texas A&M and students are heading home to spend time with family.
But, for local small businesses, this means fewer customers are in town.
The City of College Station heavily relies on the student population for economic value — and it's tough now that they're officially on winter break.
Kinda Fry with Visit College Station says, “usually during this time of the year we’ll see a little bit of a dip.”
But despite the dip in foot traffic, the city has plans to combat the loss.
”One of the things we try to do as Visit College Station is create events to keep people coming to town,” Fry said.
Visit College Station creates events around the holidays like the Artisan Market in Century Square. They say it’s a way to encourage locals to come out and support small businesses.
”It is a unique market as an economy driven area in that regard is when the students leave but our locals always support us,” said Renee Britten, a soapologist and owner of Cast Iron Soaps.
Not only do the events attract people from around the Brazos Valley, but Visit College Station says it helps attract tourists from other parts of the country as well.
“And that’s what’s great about these small pop-up type markets," Britten said. "I really appreciate the City of College Station with their visitor bureau does bring tourism to our area.”
Their goal to show newcomers all that College Station has to offer.
”We try to do these events around other things happening," Fry said. "We knew graduation was happening this weekend, so how do we get people not to just come in for graduation and go home but how can we make them extend their stay a little bit and offer them other things?”
Stay up to date with Visit College Station events this holiday season and year round here.