Albany CVB celebrates Travel Writers and Tourism Week

ALBANY — In an effort to highlight the importance of tourism and travel in Albany and Dougherty County the Albany Convention and Visitors Bureau will be celebrating National Travel and Tourism Week through May 10.

Monday marks the start of the 32nd annual Tourism and Travel Week, which serves as a way of sharing the importance of the tourism industry with citizens and the business community.

Albany Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) Director Rashelle Beasley said tourism and travel play a huge role in the metro Albany economy, generating jobs and economic impact

According to the U. S. Travel Association data for 2013, tourism in Albany and Dougherty County contributed more than $213 million in direct spending, supported more than 2,020 jobs, generated $8.13 million in state tax revenue and more than $6 million in local tax revenues. That local tax revenue correlated to $396 in tax relief per household.

Throughout Georgia, the tourism industry continues to be an important sector with more than 411,000 jobs, making it the state’s fifth largest employer with an economic impact of $53.6 billion.

Nationally, tourism provided $2.1 trillion in economic output and $927.9 billion in direct travel-related spending in the U. S. by domestic and international travelers in 2014, and generated $141 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues. The tourism industry also supported 15 million American jobs.

While those figures are impressive, Beasley said part of the importance of Travel and Tourism Week is helping to educate the community not just about the numbers surrounding the industry, but also about what tourism is and, more importantly what a tourist is.

“The one thing that people in Albany and Dougherty County may not realize is what a tourist actually is,” said Beasley. “Really a tourist is just somebody who does not live here and comes here and takes advantage of restaurants and gas and hotels and attractions, anything. Tourism is not just going to Disney World or going to the beach.”

In the case of Albany and Dougherty County, the majority of the tourists that visit the city are business travelers or what is known as pass through travelers, who are stopping in Albany on their way to another place.

Beasley said that the CVB tries to collect data on every traveler, an average of 15,000 annually, that visits the downtown Welcome Center on Front Street to learn where that person is coming from, where they are going and why they came through Albany.

The vast majority of those visitors are coming from nearby states such as Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina, but also California.

“We had a good number of travelers from California last year,” said Beasley. “North Carolina and California were tied for fifth most.”

As for the reasons for coming to Albany, Beasley said the top three reasons given were to see family, on business and to visit area attractions.

Regardless of those reasons, however, Beasley is quick to remind people that most of the travelers stay in Albany overnight and therefore stay in area hotels, eat at area restaurants, shop in area stores and pay admission to area attractions.

In fact, one of the highlights of the Travel and Tourism Week activities in the Albany area is Tuesday’s “Travel Rally,” where the CVB will visit area travel and tourism-related businesses to deliver “goodies” and let them know how important those businesses are for Albany and Dougherty County.

“Those travelers have to stay here, eat here, they need things to do on the weekend, they go shopping,” said Beasley. “They create a great opportunity for businesses to hear those cash registers ring on a regular basis. The thing about these people coming in is they come here and dump money and leave. That’s good for the community.”