Thursday, December 13, 2007

Tourism director: Golf, food just a few of Alabama’s attractions

What can people do and see when they come to Alabama?  Alabama Director of Tourism and Travel, Lee Sentell, answered that question Thursday, sharing lunch with Auburn Rotarians at the Elks Lodge.

October 5, 2007

What can people do and see when they come to Alabama?

Alabama Director of Tourism and Travel, Lee Sentell, answered that question Thursday, sharing lunch with Auburn Rotarians at the Elks Lodge.

“We try to market specifics,“ he said. “Recently we published a list of ‘100 dishes to eat in Alabama before you die.’ In 2006, we had the Year of Alabama Outdoors. This year, it’s the Year of Alabama Arts. In 2008, we have the Year of Alabama Sports.“

And that’s where East Central Alabama comes in.

“What’s been missing from our television commercials is Auburn and Opelika,“ he said. “We plan to have commercials featuring Auburn, Toomer’s Corner and the (Lovelace) Museum.“

Alabama Welcome Centers in the future will have local ties, Sentell said. He noted that industrial design students from Auburn University will work to redesign the centers on Alabama’s borders. Welcome centers are often the first impression a visitor has of a new state.

Foods, places and history are interesting, but a major part of Alabama’s tourism industry comes from its golf courses - primarily the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail that features a number of challenging facilities/resorts, including Grand National at Lake Saugahatchee in Opelika. Sentell said golf is not responsible only for an increase in tourism revenue.

“The fact that Auburn/Opelika was selected by Golf Digest as the No. 1 city in America for golf (in 2005) is huge when it comes to recruiting businesses and employees for your business,“ he said. “The quality of life is near the top of the list for amenities that companies are looking for when they decide where to locate.

“When Dr. (David) Bronner announced he was going to build a string of golf courses in Alabama to attract industry and retirees and promote tourism, a lot of people laughed. They said Alabama is not a golf state. But he made it a golf state.“

Bronner, head of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, created the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in 1992 and its courses are prominently featured on state tourism advertisements.

“We have a state retirement system that had foresight and the golf trail is his baby,“ Sentell said. “It does what he intended it to do - help with industrial recruitment, bring retirees into the state and improve the quality of life.“

Sentell said Alabama’s travel and tourism industry has grown by 42 percent over the last four and a half years, with figures calculated by lodging taxes.

“There are now 178,000 working in the hospitality industry, which include restaurants, hotels, attractions and suppliers,“ he said. “It’s an invisible industry because you can’t drive on and interstate and see it like a Mercedes or Hyundai plant.“

“Some people think that Alabama has a negative image,“ Sentell said. “But they don’t know much about Alabama.“