by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Based on a recent survey of people who live in Atlanta conducted by Visit Jacksonville, most of them have a distorted opinion of the city “Where Florida begins.”
At Friday’s meeting of the Downtown Council of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce, Visit Jacksonville President & CEO John Reyes said the poll revealed, “Many people in Atlanta think of Jacksonville as merely a place to drive through — either that or they have the idea the city smells like a paper mill.”
Reyes said Visit Jacksonville has produced and is placing a TV and radio advertising campaign in the Atlanta market to encourage tourists from the Peach State to come to Jacksonville for recreation and conventions. He added that the Atlanta effort is part of an aggressive new attitude on the part of Visit Jacksonville to re-brand the city and expand the promotional efforts through technology, especially on the Internet.
Visit Jacksonville is also developing tourism packages built around special events, said Reyes, because research indicates many people perceive Jacksonville as a “festival destination” for arts and music, especially the annual Jazz Festival produced by the City’s Special Events Department.
“We’re also going to bring the excitement of The Players Championship Downtown again in 2008,“ he added.” Headquarters for the promotion will be the Landing and our goal is to bring 10,000 people to Jacksonville for the week of the tournament. There aren’t enough hotels at the beaches to accommodate that number of guests, so why shouldn’t they stay Downtown?”
Expect to see even more ethnically and religiously diverse groups next year than in 2007. This year’s success with promoting multicultural tourism was such a success, particularly between July and December, that the effort will be expanded. Reyes said the last half of the calendar year is what he calls Jacksonville’s “need period” in terms of filling hotel rooms, and Visit Jacksonville has recently added staff in its sales division to specifically address that part of the year.
Another area of tourism that will become an even greater segment of Jacksonville’s overall mix is medical tourism. Reyes and City officials announced three weeks ago that a new campaign is being launched to encourage medical suppliers and groups to come to Jacksonville for meetings. He said since the campaign’s debut, Visit Jacksonville has booked a group of 1,000 people for a medical convention.
“We’re branding Jacksonville as ‘America’s Health Center’. Hospitals are traditionally very competitive among themselves, but it’s great to see our excellent local health care providers working together to make this initiative a success,” said Reyes.
Friday’s meeting was the final one of the year for the Downtown Council, and 2007 President Ray Hays symbolically passed the gavel to Jim Love, who will be the group’s president for 2008. Jepp Walter, Downtown Council’s 2007 Small Business Leader of the Year, is president-elect.