Alabama Showbird by John Dersham

Events generate tourism dollars to our community. Many people think of tourists as the people that visit us on their vacations. The ones that come to our State Parks, Little River Canyon, our camps or to the Alabama Museum and Gift Shop. The same people that rent our cabins, stay in Hotels, campgrounds and B&B’s. The same ones that eat in our restaurants, shop in our stores. These visitors come for a leisurely trip to enjoy our fantastic scenery and pleasant small town experiences. This has been our traditional tourist in DeKalb County.
There is another kind of tourism that is critical to any community and we are beginning to receive more of it. It is event based tourism. Event tourism is travelers coming to our area for a specific event, such as; a local festival like Boom Days, Ider Mule Day, Sand Mountain Potato Festival, Mentone Rhododendron Festival, Collinsville Turkey Trot or Fyffe UFO Days. They may be here for a concert, rodeo, horse show or ATV event at our new Agri Business Center. It can be a sporting event like a baseball or swimming tournament at our Parks and Recreation locations. All of these events bring money to our communities from people to who travelled from outside our area to come here. They buy gas, eat, shop, spend the night in our hotels, cabins, campgrounds etc.
The weekend before last the Alabama Showbird Association had a big event at our VFW Fairgrounds. Many people may not realize just how big of a tourism draw an event like this might be. Heath Locklear is Vice President of the Alabama Showbird Association this year. He asked us to have a booth at the event to promote our county. In a note to me from Heath on Facebook here is how he recapped the event,

“Hey John. I wanted to thank you for sending Misty over to the show with the tourist info. I wanted to give you some figures that I thought were really encouraging for this being our first show. At 9:00 am I had several club members go around and try to get a rough headcount. We took those figures and estimated 450 people inside the show at one time. That's not counting the 30 or 40 people that were outside selling and buying birds and supplies. We had 700 birds in the show. This did not count all the birds that were for sale. We confirmed 29 motel rooms that were rented for the show that weekend. Not counting the people that stayed at the State Park. We could not have been happier. We have already begun work on our next spring show and have plans for it to be even bigger. We have decided on doing a show program next year and selling ads to help cover the cost. Our idea is to target mainly the local mom and pop stores so that the exhibitors will be encouraged to visit downtown and other local businesses. Any ideas that you have on the subject would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for all your help.
Talk to you soon,”
Heath

Heath’s comments point to the local aspects of an event like this and making sure our local businesses feel the benefit of visitors spending money in our town.

The Alabama Showbird Association is a non-profit group dedicated to the raising and showing of all breeds of poultry. Founded almost 50 years ago, they believe today just as the founders did, that raising poultry is a great hobby for young and old alike. Nothing quite compares to the pride and feeling of accomplishment that one gets from seeing one of his or her birds being admired by a large group of his or her peers. And the lessons learned and passed to younger generations are priceless.
For more information visit www.alabamashowbird.webs.com