The Texas Travel Industry Association, an Austin-based nonprofit organization, is holding its 30th annual summit at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio this week. Dozens of TTIA members from across the Lone Star State are expected to attend. 

These are not the state of Texas travel marketers who gave us the slogan, “TEXAS It’s Like a Whole Other Country,” or “Remember the Alamo.” TTIA members are employed by or own a travel-related business in Texas.

Texas history does not begin with its declaration of independence from Mexico 1836. Long before this revolt, indigenous people and Hispanic settlers lived in the vast region called New Spain. Spain’s conquest of Mexico in 1519 continued until Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1810. Then, what was known as Tejas to the inhabitants, became part of Mexico.

Spain’s European blood was not only spilled in the bloody conquest of Mexico but mixed with Mexico’s indigenous tribes, resulting in a people called mestizos. Mexicans are inheritors of this extraordinary human fusion.

Sugar Land, 20 miles southwest of Houston, is poised to receive more than 10,000 food and wine lovers this week. The 12th Annual Sugar Land Wine & Food Affair kicks off Wednesday, April 8 and runs through Sunday, April 12.

Premium wines, only 400 bottles shy of 3,000, will be swirled, savored, and paired with delicious samplings of haute cuisine prepared by nearly 100 Texas, national, and international celebrity chefs representing some of the region’s best restaurants.