Enjoying what I do...

One of my favorite reasons for working in travel & tourism is that people are happy when they get to talk about where they are from... and then they invite you to visit them! It doesn't get much better than that except perhaps bragging on grandchildren.

Recently I discovered a friend of ours is writing a regular blog on travel around the United States with many of his postings focused on the southeast - and that makes me smile too! Below, you will find several of his recent writings about my favorite region. If you enjoy these, you can see more stories under the byline US-Traveler on wordpress (http://travelusblog.wordpress.com/) and follow great tweets @Travel_Bee.

To see other places we like to brag about in the southeast have a look here: http://southeasttourism.destinations2discover.com/.

May your holiday season be wonderful and the new year bring you health & happiness in abundance...

Chuck

(@SoutheastTouris)

The Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival in FL

Come and visit the Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival, a special taste experience! Enjoy free live entertainment and sample Frog Leg Dinners or Gator Tail. There is also a variety of food available from Sausage and Peppers to Candy Apples. Several craftsmen will be there offering shopping opportunities. Have your kids take a fun pony ride or go on an adventurous helicopter ride with beautiful views. This year the Festival Committee is planning to serve nearly 7,000 dinners and estimate more that 80,000 people attending the 4 day event. The purpose of the Festival is to continue to raise funds for the recreational needs of children in Fellsmere with proceeds also donated to volunteer organizations who work the Festival.

Broadway at the Tennessee Theatre: The Wizard of Oz

Experience your favorite musicals in the majestic setting of Knoxville’s Grand Entertainment Palace. Whether you are a seasoned fan of the Great White Way or brand new to the world of musicals, you’re sure to be thrilled by the spectacular dance moves, visually stunning costumes, and unparalleled artistry of the shows we’ve selected for the 2009-2010 season! There truly is no place like home as the greatest family musical of all time, the wonderful Wizard of Oz, twists its way into Knoxville! A spectacular celebration of the iconic 1939 MGM film, the Wizard of Oz will blow you away from the moment the tornado touches down and transports you to a dazzling art deco Oz, complete with munchkins and flying monkeys.

“Grasshopper” Airboat EcoTours on St. Johns River Florida

Experience a unique and thrilling Florida Airboat ride adventure! Join Captain Rick’s personalized, interpretive eco-tour as you look for alligators, native and migratory birds, and other Florida wild life on the St. Johns River. Climb aboard “Grasshopper”, a state-of-the-art Airboat, custom built for a comfortable and safe Florida Airboat ride, promising you an educational and fun wildlife experience. The Airboats are specially designed and custom built with the visitors in mind. Elevated seating ensures a full undisturbed view, no matter where you sit. The weather proof seat bottom and back rests are cushioned for a comfortable ride. You also have the opportunity to sample Gourmet Alligator Snacks as part of your unique Florida dining experience! Make sure to bring sunglasses, sun screen – and your camera of course!

24th Annual Southern Gardening Symposium in Callaway Gardens

Learn from an outstanding group of experts at this 3-day symposium devoted to gardening in the South! Designed for all gardeners, this jam-packed schedule offers lectures, demos, workshops and a one-stop gardening marketplace. The symposium will take place in Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain GA. This content-rich event provides the unique opportunity for personal interaction with the speakers including for instance Lee Anne White, Pam Baggett, Pamela Crawford and Dr. Mark Windham. Attendees can also take part in a pre-conference tour of Jim Scott’s fantastic Lake Martin Garden with imaginative use of water features or participate on a silent and live auction for unique plants and garden items.

Bourbons of the Bluegrass—Distillery Tours in Lexington, KY

Tour a Bluegrass bourbon distillery and you’ll not only learn how bourbon is made, but you’ll start to understand why the “good old whiskey of old Kentuck” has inspired pride, passion (and even poetry) among Kentuckians. Distilleries in the Lexington area have regular tour programs. And just like the different brands of bourbon they produce, the distilleries themselves have distinct personalities. Children are welcome. The tours do involve a fair amount of walking and stair-climbing, so wear comfortable shoes.

Bringing the Best of our Communities to Light

'Tis the Season to share... so in that spirit I want readers to see a story about the travel & tourism industry and how we help bring the best of our communities to light. Each year, all over the southeast, we deck the halls (and the roads, the parks and anything else we think of) for family, for friends and visitors from around the world... and it really makes me smile. Enjoy the season, and this story by Tom Adkinson.

Chuck

"We'll Leave the Holiday Lights On for You"

By Tom Adkinson
tadkinson@bohanideas.com

"We'll leave the lights on for you" is never truer than in December when communities across the Southeast brighten the night sky with stunning displays of holiday lights.

Many people—not just ones with twinkling lights in their eyes—point to Wheeling, West Virginia, as a pioneer in "turn on the lights and they will come" winter tourism.

That's because of the Winter Festival of Lights that started in 1985 at the Oglebay Resort. It started big (a three-mile drive and 125 acres of lights) and got bigger (a six-mile drive showcasing 300 acres now). Among the huge displays is a poinsettia wreath with candles 60 feet tall.

What Oglebay started, Sevier County, Tennessee, jumped on after the Tennesseans visited their West Virginia tourism cousins. The result is Smoky Mountain Winterfest, with light displays and festivities from November through February in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville.

The Pigeon Forge portion of Smoky Mountain Winterfest is on the current Top 100 Events in North America list as judged by the American Bus Association. In addition to the city's five million holiday lights, the Dollywood theme park flips the switch on four million more for its Smoky Mountain Christmas festivities.

Another regional event on the Top 100 list this year is the Callaway Gardens Fantasy of Lights in Pine Mountain, Georgia. If there's a chill in the air, you'll want to bundle up for this five-mile trolley ride through the gardens to see displays that use eight million lights.

A third Southeastern event on the ABA list is the Galaxy of Lights at the Huntsville Botanical Garden in Alabama. The ride may be shorter than at Callaway Gardens (1.5 miles), but the displays still will still dazzle you. In addition to traditional holiday scenes and nursery rhyme displays, lighted dolphins will jump over your car, and you'll even encounter dinosaurs.

Over on the coast, Charleston, S.C., has celebrated the holidays for centuries, and for the last 20 years, the Holiday Festival of Lights at James Island County Park has been a Lowcountry tradition. It offers more than two million lights in 600 displays. A bonus is a touching display of holiday cards made by area schoolchildren.

At the other edge of the Southeast is Lake Charles, Louisiana, where the whole region sparkles with the Southwest Louisiana Lighting Festival. Fireworks over Lake Charles (the actual lake, not the city) kick off the festivities on December 5, and you'll find displays in six communities—Lake Charles, Sulphur, DeQuincy, Vinton, Moss Bluff and Iowa.

If you crave the full experience, enjoy the lights and then head over to Steamboat Bill's for a bowl of seafood gumbo or chicken and sausage gumbo. You'll feel like a real Louisianan at Christmas.

Help on the Web

Here are some Web sites for holiday light details.

Charleston: www.ccprc.com
Huntsville: www.hsvgb.org
LakeCharles: www.VisitLakeCharles.com
Pine Mountain: www.CallawayGardens.com
Tennessee: www.MyPigeonForge.com, www.Gatlinburg-Tennessee.com, www.VisitSevierville.com
Wheeling: www.Oglebay-Resort.com

Gateway and Tribal Communities and Tourism

On September 15, 2009, The Western States Tourism Policy Council (WSTPC), Southeast Tourism Society (STS), the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA) and key Federal agencies participated in a one-day Policy Forum on Gateway and Tribal Communities in Washington, D.C., held at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The forum "Stimulating Economic Vitality and Resource Conservation in Gateway and Tribal Communities" focused on how gateway and tribal communities, which serve millions of visitors to the Federal public lands, can balance their need for growth and vitality with the conservation and protection of natural resources during a time of severe economic challenges.

Speakers included Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Attendees included top leaders from gateways and tribes, state and local governments, the tourism and recreation industry and major Federal land and other agencies whose policies have a significant impact.

The economic and ecological condition of gateways and tribes were reviewed and participants had an opportunity to consider future policies, strategies and partnerships.

Executive Summary Notes (Draft)


View pictures from the event | View comments from the event

Pay Attention... or Pay the Price

By Chuck Bonelli

Southeast Tourism Society

Have you heard? Local city and county councils and state legislatures have one thing in common these days... revenues are down.

Revenues from property taxes, revenues from sales tax, school taxes and fees of all kinds just aren't what they used to be. Besides the obvious problem, lack of funds, there's this - where to get the money to fund schools & services in a time when every revenue stream is hard hit, and you don't want to impose another new tax; a very unpopular solution?

Councils often look to funds that are now being used to attract visitors... bed tax collections. This should be of particular concern to the travel & tourism industry and especially for destinations and visitor bureaus. We hear it all the time in one form or another: "That money is just sitting there doing nothing when it could be used for the good of the community..."

Note: The time to educate them about the importance of tourism to economic development is before you hear this - but that is a topic for another time.

However, there is something you can do to be proactive for your destination - simply pay attention and be engaged.

Be sure that someone from your board or your staff attends every council meeting and workshop... especially budget workshops. Although this may not stop a funding loss, at least your input will be heard and the truth be told about how important marketing a destination is - especially in a down turn. There are many other reasons than budget to get to know the council and those who govern – but this one may be the most important.

Follow the links below for a few stories about funding cuts suggested or approved… the bottom line is snooze, you could lose (and so could the effort to bring tourism to your community). To be sure there are stories about those that have increased funding to their DMO or CVB – but I bet you they attend those meetings – don’t you think?

Oh, if those tourists don’t visit your town because they aren’t invited… do you suppose they just stay home, or perhaps they go someplace they recently heard about.

Don’t you think the last thing we should do is to cut the source of our income by pulling in the welcome sign – we all know that market share is easy to lose, and hard as hell to regain.

I’m just curious,

Chuck

Gainesville, GA http://bit.ly/H51Bn

Roanoke, VA http://bit.ly/8AZcW

Macon, GA http://bit.ly/3IKoJS

Pierce County, WA (Tacoma) http://bit.ly/lYLLH

Palm Beach, FL http://bit.ly/1HNTaU

Pennsylvania http://bit.ly/4CrgpS

Relevancy & Member Organizations

Continuing the discussion of relevance (Is relevance enough? How associations can achieve relevance and maintain it over time -- Acronym: http://bit.ly/fIQOl)

Being relevant is nice - but leading is the path to success. Relevancy is achieved by communication with members; leading is achieved by knowing what lay ahead.

The way to lead is different for everyone, but I believe that associations that put members first are stronger for their effort – in fact that is a cornerstone of a great association. If the first question an association staff member thinks about when they go about their day is “How does this affect our members?” Then, that is a group I want to belong to, because I know if the answer can not be determined easily, then this is something that association will give much consideration before proceeding. The process of answering that question can (and in my view, should) be member driven.

Associations should not wait for an issue to be presented to ask that question. Taking the lead means first being up-to-date on our industry. After all, is that not something the member pays dues for us to do? Consistently having a out-reach to a variety of members representing the diversity of the organization including new members, old members, different categories, protagonists & antagonists shows us the way to lead. Association managers can not afford to live in a bubble - the dues we receive generally come from discretionary budget line items... and those that join our organizations will go away if we fail them.

How do you get ahead of that curve? Only by having a future vision for your industry. Not only where it is heading, buy why; how is it getting there - and perhaps most importantly... is that the right place to go? Having an effective, active and monitored (by the membership) strategic plan is one way to ensure you stay relevant. How you do that is another topic entirely - but if you undertake a strategic initiative like this be sure to involve your membership every step of the way. Most importantly, be accountable to your membership for the progress (or lack of progress) to that plan... and be open to change as the industry changes.

Relevant is not just repeating the buzz of the day, there are thousands of opinions floating around right now about how to survive 'these challenging economic times.'

I am just curious, wouldn't it be more relevant for an association to take the lead on what the new business model will be (should be?) in 24 months? If we as an association don't know that answer - I bet some of our members do... and they are probably just waiting to be asked to share that information.

For more information about Southeast Tourism Society plans, programs and upcoming events: view our industry web site: http://bit.ly/wXT3p

Why Meetings?

Driving home from Montgomery following our Spring Meeting, I had a chance to think about "Why Meetings?"

The standard answers all apply - from the U.S. Travel Associations’ Meetings Mean Business campaign (see: http://is.gd/lMaZ) to the sound of hopeful meeting attendees everywhere quoting education, networking, etc. as reasons they have to attend. But standard answers do not tell the whole story… there is so much more happening when you hit the road and gather with a common purpose.

Why Meetings? Well, at this conference I know a good friend found a great job; and an downsized entrepreneur made contacts that will launch his new business. I also witnessed first hand selfless tourism pros giving back shoveling mulch & painting railings at the Montgomery Zoo; they also dug deep to bid on silent auction items raising over $13,000 to help fund Marketing College (they donated the items too). It is also where we saw 27 seasoned professionals earn their TMP from that 3-year program, many citing the scholarships they received from Southern Living, Miles Media, Alabama Mountain Lakes and others as the reason why they were there.

Why Meetings? Where else can you generate great conversation amongst so many in our diverse industry – where researchers (shout out to our friends at Southeast Chapter of TTRA) mingled with destinations who sat next to attractions who visited with suppliers and publishers. You just can’t do that on the phone; web meetings just do not generate that enthusiasm or the bonding relationships that sharing a meal, a moment and a memory at meetings accomplish. It is so hard to connect like you can at a meeting - where a panel of CVB directors can not only give some advice, but get some back with audience feedback on the spot; and when times up, you still have the chance to talk with those to dig just a bit deeper. It just is not the same when not in person.

I hope you are not surprised that this week I heard and felt a prevailing sense of optimism; and why not? Tourism folks from all across the country deliberately traveled here to have a chance to figure it out, to socialize and to try to make their job just a bit easier. They attended to refresh and brainstorm the issues of the day. They attended to share that optimism and a hope to help. They truly get it, and more importantly want to share it. Why in these challenging economic times (Hell, Yeah!) it is just what successful people always do - take the next step in that journey to success.

Montgomery CVB Staff
I think the true magic of the week goes beyond the speakers and the attendees; it came from the spirit of Montgomery. Their obvious appreciation of what tourism does for their community... from the inspiration and leadership of their Mayor (past & present) to the hard work of the CVB staff - they really get it. I could define better "get it," but I think you might know what I mean... tourism really is economic development – and if anyone does, Montgomery really puts a face on the tourism industry.

I am Just Curious, were you part of the many memorable moments in Montgomery? You can see a few of them here: "Montgomery Alabama Virtual Trolley Tour" http://is.gd/pgJp and more here: "STS Trade Show" 3 Video Shorts, http://is.gd/pizB, http://is.gd/piAf and http://is.gd/piAD.

The Montgomery Virtual Trolley

The Southeast (Volun) Tourism Society

Creating a Feeling of Unity for Community and Industry

Asheville Clean-Up Crew

Following hurricanes Katrina & Rita, like many other organizations, Southeast Tourism wanted to lend a hand to help the area and the industry get back on its feet. This took on two flavors... we moved our annual Spring and Fall meetings to the area, and decided to put some sweat equity where our hearts where.

So began what is now part of our organization's core values. Our projects, although small in scope compared to others around the country, are important to the communities we visit. Perhaps more significantly, this outreach gives members a chance to grow their feeling of kinship with STS - and as we often describe ourselves as family, this touches home.

"Beauvoir" Biloxi, MS
Our first project brought folks together to rescue precious historical books and artifacts from Jeff Davis' badly damaged, yet still standing, estate in Biloxi.

The value of this project proved to be much more than protecting the heritage for future generations. Those that particpated had to commit extra time from a busy conference & travel schedule. Time that could have been spent at work or with family before a few days away from home. As a result, there was a real sense of benefit personally, but also for the industry we work in... it wasn't just giving back, it was building our future and helping our industry neighbors.

"Since our first effort in Biloxi", STS Chairman, Leon Downey (Executive Director of the tourism department in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) recounted, "this has become a tradition of volunteering in our meeting locations..." and indeed, tradition and labor looked forward to with the STS volun-tourism effort is now an important part of our meeting schedule.

Our members have experienced other parts of our wonderfully diverse region in their giving back... for example we lent a hand to the restoration effort along the Creole Nature Trail in Southwest Louisiana. Last spring we did a major roadside cleanup in Asheville, N.C. and in the fall we helped the Clinton Presidential Library (Little Rock, Ark.) sort through thousands of books and stuff fund raising envelopes for the Foundation.

The tradition created in Biloxi continues with a show of support for Montgomery tourism, as more than 30 of our meeting attendees (almost 15%!) will participate in a “voluntourism” project at the Montgomery Zoo on March 23.

Being 'Just Curious,' I have to ask - have you tried it yet? If you have, you know what I mean - rolling up your sleeves is not only rewarding - but it is a heap of fun, and a great way to make new friends. I hope you can join us!


Creole Nature Trail


Clinton Presidential Library