Historic Heartland Travel Association Meeting

Last week the GMOA PR team traveled down to Macon, Ga., for a Georgia’s Historic Heartland Travel Association (HHTA) membership meeting. The Historic Heartland region is made up of 19 counties, including Athens-Clarke, from the center of the state. At the meeting, we learned about the current tourism marketing efforts of our fellow Heartland region members and were proud to boast about our soon-to-begin museum construction and GMOA on the Move efforts.

A few highlights from the meeting included the presentation of the new HHTA brochures, “Georgia Made, Georgia Grown” flyers for the Heartland, and an announcement about an upcoming feature story on the region in the January issue of Southern Distinction. We will be writing story ideas about the museum for this issue so keep a lookout in January!

Finally, the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) made a presentation on the current status of the state’s tourism industry, trends to watch out for and a look back on 2008. GDEcD also offered tips and tactics on marketing strategies and an update on some of Georgia’s efforts to boost travel within the state. This is some interesting and extremely useful stuff! You can check out the entire presentation by visiting the Tourism section of the Georgia Industries tab of the www.georgia.org website. We will also publish a series of posts highlighting various topics from GDEcD’s presentation over the next few weeks.

GMOA has been a part of the Historic Heartland Travel Association for nearly 20 years, since current director William U. Eiland’s stint as PR coordinator. Membership in organizations such as HHTA provides insight into the trends and marketing initiatives of other destinations and tourist attractions throughout the region. Due to the current economic climate, in-state travel is on the rise, providing great opportunities for a state art museum. To attract new patrons after its expansion, the museum will serve an even bigger role in drawing tourists to Athens and improving our local economy.