Central Georgia Focus: How Visit Macon is showing tourists where soul lives

welcome to Central Georgia Focus i am your host today Frederick Price you know Mon has a lot to sing about whether you're talking about its rich music history the crowd drawing events like the 43rd annual International Cherry Blossom Festival the city's diverse cultural scene or its beautiful southern architectural charm Mon is an uncovered jewel that continues shining every single day so today we talk about all things that are drawing visitors to the city our guest Gary Weed the president and CEO of Visit Mon the visitor center located in downtown thank you so much for being here with us today it's my pleasure Frederick so I mean you're kind of a well-known guy around the city but kind of tell us about yourself and Visit Min too well absolutely well I've been here going on eight years now and uh it's one of those situations a good friend DTO Moore likes to say M chose me yeah and that's the way I look at it the opportunity to move back to the south from from out west and be a part of an organization like visit making that's uh been in operation over 40 years and and really just um it it's kind of unknown a lot of people don't know what we do locally uh because we're so outward facing and our role is to um help visit minractions uh in making bib county hotel motel tax funds 11 entities including ours so our job is to bring those people to those hotels support those workers those staff and and really just kind of become the ambassadors and storytellers for making and and it's more or less a welcoming center for people that come and visit the city i imagine you all see a lot of people kind of tell us about that and how you're able to keep track of all of these people you see every year absolutely for us there's there's lots of different ways that uh we kind of track and our visitor center uh located on Martin Luther King Jr boulevard uh we welcome people especially this time of year with the cherry blossoms in full bloom uh we're welcoming visitors but for us it's through the door but also we use a lot of analytics um the the industry has really come a long way in my 26 years of doing this to where we can track uh those numbers track those visitors coming into our destination our attractions our restaurants our hotels so for us it's using those analytics to know where to market um what events attract the most things of that nature i imagine your memor is probably better than mine but do you have an idea of the number of people perhaps last year or 2023 uh sure for for last year uh let's just say cherry blossom okay for cherry blossom last year uh we saw over 100,000 visits uh during the 10 days of the cherry blossom that generated uh we deal in economic impact a lot and uh run those uh numbers through a calculator that that's the industry standard and Cherry Blossom uh generated a little over $6 million in economic impact for our community and for us that we kind of call that direct spend that's people in the hotels that's people in the restaurants now Mon as a whole we uh work with some outside agencies to be able to track that number and with three interstates rolling through Mon and the visitation we see north of around 5 million visitors a year that that make a stop in in Mon Bib County uh which just adds to that overall economic uh development that economic impact for our community i mean if you think about it logistically Mon is just growing and and it continues growing but when you look at the numbers and you're like "Oh my goodness 5 million people came to Mon the city with so much rich history right?" What goes through your mind when you see that i know it must be you know a sense of of you know pride it it really is it's it's a sense of pride it's also a sense of satisfaction because uh we know that we're doing our job we know that we're helping our community uh for for us at Visit Makin we consider ourselves part of the economic development picture for our county and what do I mean by that well our philosophy is if you create a place people want to visit then you create a place people want to move to right uh open a business raise a family and it's just kind of a a cyclical uh pattern that we're able to track and so we're that first date for economic development somebody looking to move their industry their business um and when I was coming up I went out and looked for a job and then I moved to that place where the job was nowadays a lot of people will move to a really cool and quality of life community and then work look for their career look for their work and for us we take great pride in promoting and being ambassadors to tell that making story something else the entire city really takes pride in is the cherry blossom festival one of the biggest in the nation so called the pinkst party in the country kind of talk about how you all prepare for that absolutely for for us uh you know the festival itself attracts so many people thousands and thousands of people but what uh we work with a lot of times are the people coming to see the blossoms you know um hundreds of thousands of trees and and being able to kind of see those people come in we do tours out of our place uh we welcome bus groups each year that come in to to see the trail the cherry blossom trail or go to the festival um you know we're involved with some other events this here um we're doing a what would you would call a a Gamers or Comic-Con convention that first weekend coming up this weekend uh then we're also bringing in the intercolgate boxing championships for the second weekend the largest boxing event for collegiate athletes across the country and so that'll be here as well as uh with the county uh investing in the softball fields we have a a youth softball tournament coming in that weekend so a lot of people going to be in town for the festival and as you said the pinkst party on earth and we'll have close to 20 travel writers and influencers in town covering and a lot of that information that they'll gather this year will end up in publications nationally and internationally over the next year that's incredible i mean so many people here in Mon of course they're coming to see you know the cherry blossoms but what are some of the other popular attractions this year you just named it's like an amalgamation of things that are happening well for for us you know it's about promoting our attractions and you mentioned it in your leadin that uh you know we're very much a music destination and we add to that each and every uh every day and telling that story of um you know things of Capricorn Records and the hit records that are starting to come back out of there again and that's an attraction in itself uh this week we saw the opening of the Otis Reading uh Center for the Arts uh which is an attraction as well as uh the Tubman Museum the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame Museum of Arts and Sciences and even some of our our attractions and venues like the Douglas Theater or the Mon Auditorium i mean you could go down a list and and I I love for people to say "What is there to do in Mon?" Because I can sit there and name a lot of things for visitors to do yeah we'd be talking all day about That's right and of course that generates a lot of revenue for the city let's take a look back to 2024 if you have an idea of the figures kind of tell us about the figures and and what that process has been like to to make sure that you know people support what's in the city right uh Explore Georgia which is the the state tourism office sends out figures each year for each county and for us our most up-to-date figures show that uh tourism supports 4,800 jobs in Monip County so that's our neighbors our friends our family uh and visitors will spend over $400 million a year in our county uh which translates to about $13 million in local taxes uh that's hotel motel tax that's sales tax so 13 million is a pretty good number to sh you really can't shake a stick at that because it really does contribute to the bottom line and that equation bears out that it saves each uh homeowner about $600 a year in property taxes but we took that number a little bit further we said if we decided we didn't want tourists we didn't want visitors in our community we took all that expenditure away what would that mean what would we have to do to keep up with the standard of living in making county it would cost us about $8,000 a year to make up for what visitors spend in our community so we always kind of tongue and cheek say hug a tourist you know and I I think it helps people put it in perspective and appreciate visitors to our community hug a tourist make them feel welcome right um and a lot of that you know I imagine has an impact on jobs too here locally can you talk about that sure uh as I kind of mentioned the the tourism sector or hospitality sector in our community supports about 4,800 um jobs annually and that also has a trickle down effect again we work very closely with our economic development partners and whether that's helping them with a site visit that could lead to a potential uh manufacturing facility or or uh a corporate uh headquarters so we work very closely with our our partners it's industrial authority new town chamber of commerce uh urban development authority so we all work hand in hand uh to make sure that uh making bib everybody's moving in the right direction and thus helping our citizens and helping our neighbors okay so local impact here with jobs but also the movie scene too march 17 21st Georgia Film Week talk about that and really just those opportunities for the city sure probably about six and a half years ago um the the making film commission was a volunteer organization and they approached us and said "Hey would y'all mind uh taking over operations for film making and and we did that and Aaron Buzzo on our team does a wonderful job of working with film." Um and for us it's it's been very successful we've had some wonderful productions uh in town some we can talk about some we can't talk about but for us that means um production crews coming in they stay in the hotels they eat in the restaurants they um work at buy from hardware stores uh perfect example that I like to share is during COVID in the heart of COVID uh the go big show uh came to town and they rented out our coliseum our Marriott hotel our convention center and they kind of created their own COVID bubble and tested regularly but they also had to have food had to have catering but they also reached out to local dry cleaners because they ran dry cleaning service through that because those folks were quarantine there filming this production and it resulted in about 12,000 hotel room nights for us and I think that went a long way in helping us kind of survive the pandemic when uh for the first time in my career we saw travel turn off yeah yeah well it certainly is economically remarkable we're going to continue our conversation about the local impacts here at Mon first we need to take a break once people get to Mon for an event like the Cherry Blossom Festival they can discover much more when we return we'll talk about what the Visit Min website has to offer including how to book a bus tour we're back in a moment [Applause] welcome back to Central Georgia Focus we are continuing our conversation with Gary Wheat the president and CEO of Visit Makon again so glad to have you so we previously were talking about the impact that uh the film industry or that has had here in Georgia but I also want to talk about the music industry too understand visit Makin's website theme where soul lives i think we have a video of it we're going to pop that up if we can but kind of tell us the reason behind this there it is sure for for us it's uh it it goes a little bit beyond music you know obviously we consider ourselves a music destination um but when we came up with the brand where soul lives um it very much embodies what we think of our community and our community has a lot of soul whether that is the music heritage whether it is the new live music scene or Capricorn Records but it's also the people it's the food it's the culture um it's the architecture uh that's one of the things that drew me to minimum was the the history and the architecture of our community and I think that's what embodies and really embraces that that word soul uh when we say where soul lives uh so for us uh we we kind of push that brand out and become the standard bearsers uh for where soul lives you know it's a really unique theme but how did you come together collectively getting everybody involved in this to really display the soul of this city well I I think it starts with partnerships and and for us that was that was a very easy um uh thing to do because so many people love their community here and so many of our partners love this community and they they see what's happening and they see the growth and they see the drive and the passion and and the development that's going on and so for us that was very um easy to kind of bring those folks together get them around the table and give everybody a voice uh it was very important for us to to hear what people um people that might be have lived here their whole life people that work in the hotels work in the restaurants and the attractions what do they hear from visitors because it's very important to understand what is a visitor looking for um and one of the things that statistically historically that our industry shares with us is the number one thing a visitor will remember about any trip to anywhere is their interaction with the local citizens yes so that's what we try to do is create those ambassadors amongst ourselves uh we have a program called I am making it's a free program that anybody can go through where we just kind of give you that two-minute elevator speech so that we're all kind of singing from the same himnil when we meet a visitor or we help a visitor and I encourage people to to show their soul when they're downtown especially during events like Cherry Blossom and you come across someone that that might be lost look lost or trying to navigate a parking meter stop in help them out welcome them to our community you happen to be at the grocery store and see a tag from out of state welcome those folks make them feel appreciated in this community this is a place that hey I would like to come back to yeah yeah yeah I mean it certainly does make a difference to have everyone on one accord and just naturally make and it's just a kind and welcoming place in but it goes beyond just a theme though there are so many musical artists with a lot of soul that the city can really boast about i remember telling my family when I was moving to this area they said Otis Reading immediately like who is that you know but just being here so many kind people like yourself and others have have told me about that but talk about some of those musical artists that embody soul that have come from this area absolutely well you know you you kind of touched on a little bit with with Otis Reading and what his family has really uh meant to our community and to our county and what they've done to to not only uh showcase his talents but uh teach and foster the next generation of talent through their kids programs and to their education and I think that was huge for Otis to be able to give back to his community he was such a great businessman and to be able to do some of the things he did um in his career little Richard was somebody that always bragged about being from Mon Georgia and you know he's the architect of rock and roll uh you know Otis is the king of soul this is the birthplace of southern rock and that movement with the Almond Brothers and you know to go on and on of the people that have come out of making jason Aldine currently on the charts and you know we're now creating that next generation we're building that bridge if you will because we have Capricorn Records back up and operating producing hit records like Eddie Ninvolt and Brent Cobb and Marcus King and some great artists that are now coming out of Capricorn Records that creates that next legacy and how do you guys make sure that you are are of course honoring the legends and the greats by also appropriately displaying their message because I think it's it's remarkable that we're able to keep their legacy alive for generations to come well they they meant so much to the to the music industry but but also to our county and what they were able to do to to to carry that flag so to speak and and to represent Mon Georgia uh and some of them have named albums after Mon Georgia um you know Little Richard when he every time he was interviewed he talked about being from Mon Georgia and Otis Reading just what his family has been able to do over the generations here uh to build on that legacy but it's also giving motivation and inspiration to the next generation of artists and for us we try to help build that bridge whether that's sponsoring local musicians at a popup uh soul spot during First Fridays or um helping uh sponsor a group at a venue at the Douglas Theater that's performing uh we have a video series called Making Music and being able to showcase artists and venues and history on that uh platform has gone a long way and and really helped us again bridge generational gaps between our legends and the next wave of talent and it certainly has helped the tourism industry in the city too i'm curious about bus tours though because that's something that's that's that's notable is that you know Mon does do bus tours tell us about you know where that idea came about and how people can get involved in that too absolutely well for us you know we we do offer what we call we have a music tour we have uh our soul sites tour which are van tours that we do every week we run every week um uh four days a week uh five days a week and so people can go on our website and gain access and book a ticket online to to take one of our tours uh we also recently acquired Rock Candy Tours so we have been starting to do those music tours that people love uh Free Birds and Nights is a popular walking tour that kind of showcases that music history but also especially during times like this we bring in buses from outside operators will purchase uh through us and bring their bus groups in and so we have step- on guides that will jump on the bus and and kind of escort them around Mon to showcase some of the attractions and things that are historical or relevant to our community so there's a there's something for everybody is what we like to say yeah i mean and it's pretty evident when you step in the city there certainly is something for everyone we're going to continue our conversation we're back in just a moment there are a lot of events happening in Mon we'll take a look at some of them next welcome back everybody we're talking with Gary Wheat of Visit Mon so we talk about the impact of tourism obviously film music has a huge impact but the historical sites around here the Muscogee Creek Nation and there are also hopes for the national park designation for the Oakmogi Mounds looking forward to the future just really talk about the tourism impact well I think it's going to be significant Frederick because with with the becoming America's newest national park Georgia's first national park uh we've already done test runs on bringing visitors marketing to visitors at other national parks and seen those conversions uh the studies tell us that uh we'll go from an average attendance of 200,000 people a year to north of 1.3 million uh in 10 years and that's significant impact an additional $200 million coming into our community so it's very important from that aspect of tourism but also the cultural significance of that and the partnership with the Muscogee Creek Nation as you mentioned um to be able to to bring them back in a co-management position with the national park and um them to return to their homelands and for us that relationship just continues to grow from the Mayor Miller and the county raising their flag over city hall to uh just recently we worked uh through a private donation uh to create the street signs down downtown that feature not only the English version of the street name but also the Muscogee Creek version of that so adding things like that to make them feel welcome to make them feel um you know a return to their homeland the significance of that so it goes beyond tourism but for us it's going to be a significant tourism increase which in turn you know creates the need for infrastructure improvements uh new hotels campgrounds things like that that support that national park visitor and I have seen those street signs now they look really really nice um visit Mon you know primarily for visitors but often times I imagine there are people who are natives of Mon that come do you find that sometimes people you know don't even realize all of the rich history that's literally right under their nose well that's not specific to making Georgia because just you know in my career sometimes you know we live it we breathe it each day we get a little too close to it sometimes and you know we need our eyes to open and and that's why we encourage people to to be a visitor in their own town you know to to do that stationation if you will and for us it's about the education uh and we try to do that and we do have people that come in or they're they're coming down to pick up a souvenir an item or they have family members and and we encourage people to bring their family down to see us and they walk in our visitor center and go I I had no idea or they'll watch our video and think "Oh my gosh I didn't realize making had that." Uh so even from my seat sometimes I have to go out and explore a little bit because I have to remind myself about what makes this so special and I think a lot of people do and we work with local groups they'll do meetings at our facility or they'll come take our tour uh things like that that that really help with that education process make undutably is a special place so we want to tell people how can they get in contact with Visit Min well we've got an award-winning website at visitmakon.org uh we encourage people to go there and uh that'll give you all the details of when we're open the visitor center what time tours go off how much they are uh it also has a wonderful calendar of events uh in partnership with making 365 uh that people can kind of go and see what's coming up down the down the pike we want to bring attention to what we have on the screen we just had it we had some contact information there but Gary I really appreciate our conversation and and just you know there's so much rich history any final thoughts that you'd have that you'd like people to know perhaps some upcoming events too sure well for for us you know as we move into and past Cherry Blossom uh next week we're going to take a run at the Guinness World Record for the largest kazoo ensemble a lot of people don't know that the kazoo originated in Mon Georgia uh a freed man Alabama vest went to a local watch maker with his idea and they uh presented the kazoo at the Georgia State Fair in 1852 how about that so uh next Friday which is March 28th okay uh at the amphitheater from 4 to 6 we're going to attempt to break the largest kazoo ensemble bring it home from England yeah where it belongs here in Mon Georgia well wishing you all the best Gary thank you so much for teaching me all about the uh rich history here in Mon and thank you for joining us we're back next time we'll see you then [Music]

2025-03-25 20:34

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