Albany featured in new Georgia tourism videos

ALBANY — The new “We Are Georgia” promotional videos released by the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s (GDEcD) Tourism division Wednesday in an effort to promote state tourism, feature a plethora of Georgia attractions including some in Albany and the rest of the Plantation Trace travel area of Southwest Georgia.

The 10 “We Are Georgia” videos, each roughly two minutes long, were developed by Craig Miller Productions Inc., a firm selected during an open process in 2014, and were produced as a way for Georgia’s tourism arm to promote different areas of the state.

The videos, which feature more than 70 hours of high definition video imagery of landscapes and people from across Georgia, are now ready to play at the state’s 11 Visitors Information Centers (VICs), as well as the new VIC slated to open inside Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport early next year.

Nine of the videos are named after the particular tourism region being depicted such as Atlanta Metro, Classic South, The Coast, Historic Heartland, Historic High Country, Magnolia Midlands, Northeast Georgia Mountains, Presidential Pathways and Plantation Trace, located in Southwest Georgia. A tenth is a video depicting the entire state made up of clips from the other videos.

According to a press release from the GDEcD, each of the videos, which feature music and no dialogue, strive to give viewers a taste of what can be found on a visit to these areas, which will help promote the entire state to visitors.

“One of the main reasons Georgia is such a compelling place to visit is the people who have chosen to invest their lives in sharing their love of our state with visitors,” said Kevin Langston, Deputy Commissioner of Tourism at the GDEcD in the press release. “These new, first-of-their-kind videos tell Georgia’s story in a very unique way. They illustrate the diverse landscapes and unique travel experiences that Georgia boasts, along with the passionate people who call her home. We could not be more pleased to share them with our visitors.”

Viewers of the Plantation Trace video who are familiar with the area, which includes, Valdosta, Thomasville, Albany, Dawson, Bainbridge, Tifton and others in the southwestern corner of the state, will recognize familiar places like Grassroots Coffee in Pebble Hill in Thomasville, as well as Wynfield Plantation and the Albany Civil Rights Institute in Albany.

Albany Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Rashelle Beasley said that the choices of what to portray in each video was determined by the state tourism department in conjunction with the production company in an effort to showcase things that might intrigue a tourist to take a trip to the area.

Beasley said each of the tourism regions is free to use the videos in their promotional efforts, including having it show in the regional VICs, of which Albany is one.

“The whole point of the videos is to have something that can be playing in welcome centers across the state that just tell the story of those areas,” Beasley said. “We’re free to use it any we want.”

All of the videos, including Plantation Trace, can be seen at http://budurl.com/WeAreGeorgia. They can also be seen at ExploreGeorgia.org, the state’s primary consumer marketing tool.