Alabama Department of Tourism Reports 2011 was the Best Year Ever by John Dersham

Last week I attended the quarterly statewide tourism meetings in Dothan, Alabama.
These meeting are comprised of the Alabama Department of Tourism and three other independent organizations that promote tourism in Alabama. The meeting is in a different location each quarter as to help promote tourism all around the state. This year I am honored to represent DeKalb County as the Co-Chair of the Alabama Association of Conventions and Visitors Bureaus. In these all day meetings we spend time discussing upcoming marketing and operating plans, we review results of former plans and we discuss our long term goals.
Lee Sentell presented a new updated version of The Year of Alabama Food and an all new program called Alabama Road Trip. He showed commercials that will air on the nearly 50 Raycom network TV stations all around the USA. These commercials are beautifully done and very inviting to our potential visitors who will see these commercials all across the continental US and even in Hawaii. The Alabama Road Trip commercials begin with a man in a 1953 Cadillac Convertible heading out on one of these trips. This will be an ongoing program and will include various road trips that will ultimately cover the whole state.
Lee Sentell also reported that 2011 was the best year ever in Alabama Tourism. Last year tourists spent 10.3 billion dollars in the Alabama economy with a record number of 26 million visitors. Lee also reported an increase in tourism jobs by an additional 21,181 which means 178,000 people make all or part of their income in tourism. Tourism is Alabama’s largest non agricultural employer. Revenue collected by the state from tourists primarily goes into the Alabama General Fund. To better understand just how much tax revenue tourism is collecting for our state, each family living in Alabama would have to pay an extra $400.00 a year in taxes to reach the same number (if tourism spending did not exist).
The success in the numbers comes from a slowly improving economy but was also greatly aided by the recovery in the Gulf. Whereas 2010 was adversely affected by the Gulf Oil Spill, 2011 made a major comeback due to people wanting to visit the Gulf Beaches again but also due to a large ad campaign by BP to promote tourism all across the Gulf. These ads are still running.
We had a good year in North Alabama too. Early reports show our growth over 2010 to be from 2-12% depending on location.
In the 10 years Lee Sentell has been Director of the Department of Tourism, the growth in Alabama has been phenomenal. In fact it has grown from $6.5 billion in visitor spending to $10.3 billion in the period of 2002-2011. Here is a special thanks to Lee and his entire staff for this their 10th year. When you go to the statewide meetings as I do and the state gives their presentations it is easy to see how we have been so successful. In addition, our Department of Tourism has won numerous awards given out by organizations that are looking at all 50 states. Congratulations!