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Alabama tourism boosters cross their fingers for summer season

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APR News reported about plans by the Alabama Department to introduce ticket packages for certain regions of the state. The program began with the music industry in Muscle Shoals, and civil rights destinations in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma. Now, plans are underway for the campaign to expand to the Gulf coast.

Even the COVID-19 pandemic failed to dampen down Alabama’s Gulf coast tourism industry. In 2020, with the coronavirus at it’s height, the number of tourists flocking to Alabama beaches was bigger than the State’s population. Mobile had its best hotel tax collections ever last year. Officials hope that declining COVID numbers and news about the Gulf coast visitor pass from the State will be even better news for tourism.

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“We held a zoom call with probably 30 attractions or so in the Mobile-Baldwin County area to see if they were interested in participating in out all-in-one ticket program,” said Grey Brennan. He’s the state’s deputy tourism director. He says the packages should be ready this spring, in time for the summer tourist season.

“We’ve already had the USS Alabama battleship complete their information and send it in,” said Brennan. “The other attractions, we will be contacting them, in fact, next week to try to formalize whether they think they want to be part of the program and see if they qualify.

The program lets visitors buy a ticket that’s good for a variety of attractions. Packages were recently announced for north and central Alabama. Brennan says the tourism department started work on the packages last summer. That’s the height of the tourist season on the Gulf Coast, so they first concentrated on other parts of the state.

Pat Duggins

“Our goal all along has been to have the entire state done this year and so we’re well on our way,” he said.

“I think it gives you more exposure,” said David Clark, director of Visit Mobile. He’s one of the local tourism supporters working on the Gulf Coast packages.

“People like to build itineraries when they go somewhere for a destination. They like to kind of build packages,” Clark observed. “They like to know what they’re going to do before they get here whether it be ‘You know, I want to go to the Mobile Museum of Art, the Battleship, the Carnival Museum and Africatown.’ They can buy a pass and itinerary through this program or buy a ticket to have a group tour thing to experience those bundled packages and it's a good thing.”

Clark says that even with COVID, Mobile hotel reservations hit a record last year and tourism tax collection reflect that. He thinks that the ticket packages and all the city has to offer, ranging from history, food, Mardi Gras and other attractions – all point to a good year.

“So, we’re going to be putting a more full-court press with those resources to do just that, to market all of that,” said Clark.

One major attraction coming up is the development of Africatown and the story of its residents who are the descendants of the last slaves to arrive in the United States on the schooner Clotilda.

“In addition to that, I think you have to look at destination development. Something that we’ve never really had before that we’re going to have by the middle of this year is the Africatown tourism. It’s going to be a really big thing and when the Heritage House opens is when tourism starts,” said Clark. “I call that Heritage House being the anchor of Africatown Tourism. And in that, there’ll be water and land tours that will start at Africatown, water tours that will commence from Cooper Riverside Park, the surviving Clotilda short film that we helped develop with the Savannah College of Art and Design. It’s done. It’ll be aired at Gulf Quest.”

This year is already looking good on the Gulf beaches. Beth Gendler is director of Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Tourism. That’s the beach area convention and visitors bureau. She says early indications look like this year should at least equal 2019 numbers, before COVID.

Pat Duggins

“I will tell you, in 2019, we had 6.9 million visitors,” Gendler recalled. “In 2020 we had 6 million. I expect 2021 to be at least equal to 2019 if not a little higher. So, I would expect that 2022 would be right in that same range, back up to the 2019 numbers for sure.”

Just for a comparison, Alabama’s total population is about 5 million.

“Even in COVID years, we had more visitors than we had residents,” Gendler contends.

The Gulf beaches generate a big chunk of Alabama’s total tourism revenue. Gendler says that percentage went up during COVID.

“The numbers that we typically contribute to tourism for the whole state are usually around 25 to 30 percent. In 2020, which is the last figures we have, we were I think the number is almost 40 percent, if not a little higher,” she said “Because the rest of the state was so far down compared to us, because, of course, we have the beaches, thank goodness. So, we have a lot of outdoor activities and we’re not as reliant on convention business, so it does tend to allow us to rebound a little faster, which is great because it helps the whole state, so that’s a very positive thing.”

Gendler says the outlook for tourism across Alabama looks good for this year.

“I think there’s just so many things going on around the state with Huntsville’s new Orion Amphitheater and the new culinary institute being built and about to open at Auburn. I think all of those things help our state immensely,” Gendler said. “We’d love to see Shrimp Festival. We know that’s going to happen this year and we’re just excited about things normalizing some events that were put off for a few years happening again and just welcoming everybody back to the beaches.”

Beaches and other outdoor sites helped keep Alabama tourism going during the pandemic. Grey Brennan says this season could see attractions across the state draw visitors again.

“We certainly hope that there will be a strong vacation season for the state of Alabama. Our visitors were busy during the COVID period enjoying many of the outdoor sites and we think that perhaps this will be equally important of an area for Alabama and it will attract visitors from around the U.S.,” said Brennan.

Guy Busby is an Alabama native and lifelong Gulf Coast resident. He has been covering people, events and interesting occurrences on America’s South Coast for more than 20 years. His experiences include riding in hot-air balloons and watching a ship being sunk as a diving reef. His awards include a national Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists as part of the APR team on the series “Oil and Water,” on the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Some of his other interests include writing, photography and history. He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Silverhill.
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