Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

Strand sets its sights on Atlanta

After a hearty boost in targeted marketing efforts, more Atlanta residents are visiting local and state tourism Web sites.

Online interest is a start, but there's still a ways to go in seeing feet on the ground from the sought-after metropolis.

Fewer than 100,000 residents from the Atlanta area travel to the Grand Strand each year, according to estimates from the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Atlanta visitors to DiscoverSouthCarolina.com, the official state tourism Web site, have increased steadily since the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism kicked off a renewed effort to attract residents from Georgia's capital in February.

At its peak, Atlanta traffic jumped as high as 108 percent from 2008, from 14,388 unique Atlanta visitors in June 2008 to 30,057 in June of this year.

SCPRT's campaign included radio, online and print components and promotional programming with disc jockeys in the Atlanta market, officials said. A second, shorter string of advertising is under way in the Atlanta market to drive fall traffic.

The local investment in print, television and online advertising in Atlanta increased three-fold this year, said Brad Dean, president and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

From the beginning of this year through September, 168,824 unique users from the Atlanta area have stopped by the chamber's Web site, Dean said. That's up 40 percent from 2008 and three times the total from all of 2007.

"Atlanta has always been viewed as a tremendous opportunity for our tourism industry, if only we can lure Atlanta metro residents away from Florida," Dean said. "The Gulf Coast and, in particular, destinations like Destin [Fla.] have long had a command on that market, and we've never had the necessary marketing funds to make a lasting commitment to that market."

He said Atlanta was a "tricky market."

"It requires a heavy marketing investment, and it's not a market we can turn around instantly," Dean said.

In research done on Atlanta travelers, the Myrtle Beach area doesn't rank in the top five, or even the top 10, places to travel for a vacation, he said.

"If we could penetrate Atlanta at the same level we penetrate Charlotte, we'd fill thousands of hotel rooms in the spring, summer, fall and holiday seasons," Dean said.

Even though the travel distances are about the same, Atlanta residents often travel to the Destin area rather than the Grand Strand, largely because the area has outspent the local chamber by a wide margin for many years, he said.

"Now that we have a competitive ad budget, we'll be able to capitalize upon SCPRT's increased marketing in Atlanta, which opens the door and allows us to follow up with our Grand Strand message," Dean said.

The Myrtle Beach City Council passed a sales tax for tourism that went into effect Aug. 1 and will provide $16 million to $18 million annually in out-of-market tourism efforts.

But one other major obstacle is that there's no easy way to travel from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach.

"Though we are due east, we lack the interstate access that would make it an easy drive, and the direct flights from Atlanta are not cheap, but we're working to overcome both of those limitations," Dean said.

It may be years before Interstate 73 is built, but once it is complete, the connection of Interstate 20, Interstate 95 and I-73 will make it easier to travel from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach, he said.

There are six daily nonstop flights through Delta Airlines from Myrtle Beach International Airport to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, according to Lauren Morris, spokeswoman for the Horry County Department of Airports. No other carriers at the airport offer flights to Atlanta.