GAINESVILLE – Hall County Commissioners were updated at their meeting Thursday evening on the status of tourism in Hall County.
Stacey Dickson, President of the Lake Lanier Convention and Visitors Bureau, was the bearer of good news. “Tourism is certainly alive and well in the State of Georgia,” she began.
“Our Northeast Georgia Mountains Region is generating quite a bit of revenue, almost a billion dollars,” she explained as Commissioners listened closely, “and 9,300 jobs.”
She referred to a PowerPoint slide displayed overhead that showed how tourism is the number one economic industry in the state, more than doubling the revenues generated by second place agriculture.
Taking her presentation to a local level she said, “Hall County ranks twelfth out of 159 counties. We’re twelfth in visitor expenditures. ”
Dickson said $264-million was spent by visitors to Hall County in 2013 (the latest year with verified totals), up $73-million since 2009, and “up a million dollars a month from the year before (2012).
She further broke down the latest numbers saying that in 2013 eighty new jobs in tourism related local businesses were added.
The one-year rise in visitors to Hall County generated, “$7.91 million in local taxes, which is $35,000 a month in new taxes that are helping to support our county.”
Dickson said that provided $288.84 on average per year in property tax relief to Hall County property owners. “Without visitor spending that’s how much more we’d be paying in property taxes.”
Dickson gave Commissioners a breakdown on what was drawing visitors to the County: leisure travel, business travel, organized tours and sporting events were the principle reasons people came to Hall County.
Referencing the growing popularity of sports events in the County, Dickson said LLCVB was recently asked to report to the state on the impact sporting events had on Hall County. “We had never looked at it cumulatively by sport until this last week, and when we did we were stunned.”
She said excluding fishing - huge numbers separately calculated by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Natural Resources – an estimated 441,300 people will visit Hall County in 2015 for sporting events.
Motorsports (Road Atlanta, primarily) was the leading attraction followed by baseball and rowing/kayaking events.
Local tax revenue generated from sporting events for the County and its various municipalities, according to Dickson, could be placed at $3.43 million for 2015, and again, that is excluding the money spent by the large number of fishermen and women who flock to Lake Lanier regularly.
“We’ll take it. I’m sure you will too,” Dickson said with a smile to the Commissioners.
Additionally, Dickson credited the growth in culinary tourism for attracting tourism dollars. “We did not know there were 138 locally-owned non-chain restaurants in Hall County.” She pointed out that Hall County eating establishments employ 10 accredited All-Star Chefs.
Another rapidly growing attraction to Hall County, according to Dickson, is the film industry. She said LLCVB serves as the Camera Ready Liaison for the Georgia Film Office.
She noted that the film industry has expanded so rapidly that some structure needs to be created to control its growth. “It’s kind of the Wild West right now in Hall County for film projects; when they come in we don’t have an established film permit process or ordinance like many other destinations do.”
Dickson said her office was drafting a resolution ordinance that would soon be presented to the Hall County Commission to create the structure needed to better serve the film industry. “Sometimes they come in and don’t come through our (LLCVB) office, and then suddenly they’re wanting to close a street…and they don’t have permission for that.”
When it becomes necessary to create controls to better manage and protect blossoming industries, that’s an indication that growth is strong and good days lie ahead.
