The New South: Cultural Tourism in Atlanta

Mention Atlanta and anyone outside the metropolis could tell you about the Braves, Stone Mountain, Underground, and Six Flags. Great attractions, granted, but what about the other 90 percent of the city? Does anyone know that Atlanta contains the world-class High Museum Art or Sweet Auburn Avenue? What about the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, or the museum dedicated to that favorite daughter, Margaret Mitchell?

Atlanta also has the largest airport in the world, 88,000 hotel rooms, six facilities totaling 1.7 million square feet of meeting space, and four million annual meeting delegates. “We’re one of the top five meeting places in the country,” explains Jo Ann Haden-Miller, cultural tourism director with the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. “But we can’t rely exclusively on selling only hotels and infrastructure.”

Having hosted the Olympics in 1996, the ACVB faced the challenge of finding the next “ Big Thing” to draw visitors—leisure as well as business. “It’s been my perception for years that the cultural and heritage communities could bring a lot to the table. But the organizations have such small budgets, they aren’t able to get the message out to the traveler effectively,” explains Haden-Miller.

Thus, in the fall of 1997, the ACVB launched a pilot Cultural Initiative to test the viability of an alliance between the city’s largest promoter and the stewards of its cultural and heritage offerings. The initiative’s objectives are to unify the Atlanta arts and cultural communities around common marketing goals and to add to the city’s quality of life and economic vitality. Through repeated meetings and demonstrations of its commitment, ACVB overcame some initial hesitation and brought more than 70 members to the initiative.

The tourism initiative is directed by a Cultural Tourism Board, composed of partner representatives and administered by two ACVB staff. With major corporate sponsorships—BellSouth and Coca Cola Company, among them—ACVB set out to produce a series of projects and blockbuster events to forward the organization’s goal of establishing Atlanta as the cultural gateway to the South.

In early 1999, ACVB organized a cultural tourism program that focused on a traveling exhibit of Impressionist works at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. The package, targeted at the entire southeast region, tied together the exhibit at the High, 11 hotels offering package deals, and cross promotions with seven other cultural organizations, including the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Atlanta Ballet.

Following up that blockbuster promotion, ACVB produced a collaborative outer-market summer tourism campaign that offered cultural attraction coupons and discounts at such sites as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Site and the American Shakespeare Tavern in a 24-page insert in 12 southeast market newspapers, in television commercials in five markets, and in advertisements in Southern Living.

Another promotion in 1999, “Celebrate the Spirit of America,” tied into three blockbuster American history exhibits at the High and the Atlanta History Center by offering hotel packages and discounts on admissions.

“The ACVB’s cultural initiative has drawn together the CEOs and marketing directors of the city’s arts and cultural communities into a collegial partnership that has helped us appreciate one another’s missions,” declares Gail Eaton, senior vice president of marketing at Zoo Atlanta, who adds, “The benefit of that kind of understanding has enhanced our ability to formulate cross-promotional efforts, assist one another intelligently, and call upon one another for consensus.”

To further demonstrate its commitment to developing a partnership with the arts community, ACVB packaged a program of marketing workshops with funding from BellSouth. This three-year series of training sessions, headed by a professor of marketing at Georgia State University, helps cultural site managers improve their programming, pricing, board development, and marketing techniques. Mary Rose Taylor, executive director of the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum and former chairman of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority says these workshops have been “the single most important benefit we’ve received from this collaboration. They expose us to the best expertise from around the country and, just as importantly, afford us the opportunity to get to know and learn from each other.”

In 2000, the ACVB pressed ahead with three more regional campaigns geared toward cultural tourism, plus a summer campaign that focused on a combination of arts, cultural, science, and heritage venues and events for the entire family.

As a result of all this cross-promotion, cultural venues throughout the city are experiencing greater visitorship. The Fernbank Museum of Natural History, for instance, increased ticket sales 108 percent over the previous year for the art exhibit “Life and Death under the Pharaohs.” And “Impressionism in Atlanta” netted an economic impact on the city equivalent to $30 million and set a new record of attendance at the High Museum.

For more information contact the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau at (404) 521-6659 or visit www.atlanta.com