Promoting tourism at travel shows by John Dersham

It is cold, wet, perhaps snowy and probably clouding and miserable looking outside. It is at this time of year in those more northern locations the major cities host their own travel and sports extravaganzas in their civic centers, fairgrounds or other large convention halls.

Every winter Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association (AMLA) and the State of Alabama Department of Travel and Tourism set up booths at these shows to entice travelers to come to beautiful Alabama on vacation. The shows we attend are in Cincinnati & Columbus Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, and sometimes in Louisville, Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri. People in these areas love Alabama. They come for better, sunnier weather. They come for the beach and they come for our fishing lakes and our scenic mountains and valleys. Here is where DeKalb Tourism comes in. Typically I will work the both at some of these shows on behalf of AMLA who markets the northern 16 counties in Alabama. At these shows I will hand out our travel guides and speak to potential visitors about the offerings we have in DeKalb County. Almost everyone we talk to has been to Alabama and they want to come back and they wish they were here now instead of in the dreary colder Midwest. They tend to think of us as warmer and sunnier than we really are this time of year but to them our seasonal average temperatures seem warm in comparison. Since many of these areas are very flat they love to come to our mountains. They love our state parks and woodlands. They like our campgrounds and fishing lakes. They like our scenic vistas, our lower traffic and our lower cost to visit. Many Midwesterners come here because we are an easy drive down I-65 or I-59. Some of these visitors like to come in March or April when it is still cold in their area but we are into spring. They call it their spring thaw trip. For many who have never been to Alabama this is a chance for them to see literature and here us talk about our wonderful state. AMLA and the State Tourism office usually have booths next to each other and each of us has a large one making Alabama run about 50 feet on one row. This gives a very large presence. The things people say they like best are; the Robert Trent Jones golf courses, the beach, the mountains, the fishing lakes, the weather and the general overall hospitality in our area. In the last several years as the 50^th anniversary of Civil Rights has become major source of travel to Alabama especially, Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma. I look for that to increase even more this year due to the new hit movie “Selma”. This is a refresher on Civil Rights and people love to see where movies are filmed.

After the winter travel shows are done AMLA will attend some of the Southern Women’s Expo’s and some hunting and fishing shows. I will attend some of the women’s shows. Women often make the family travel decisions in many cases and since we are a leisure tourism area they are a good market for us.