Friday, Apr. 18, 2008

Travel Channel to feature Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach, prepare for your close-up.

Samantha Brown, a personality on The Travel Channel, will film an episode featuring the Grand Strand, a spokeswoman for the channel said.

Brown hosts a "Passport" series that takes viewers on virtual vacations. This year’s series will be called "Passport to Great Weekends," featuring her picks for quick getaway destinations. Past seasons have included "Passport to Latin America" and "Passport to Europe."

The show will film in Myrtle Beach, Travel Channel spokeswoman Michae Holloman said. The series will premiere June 26 at 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., though the date for the Myrtle Beach show has not yet been determined, Holloman said.

Brown will film in Myrtle Beach in May, though not during the annual bike rallies that bring hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists to the Grand Strand, said Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

A video-taped message from Brown will be shown during a press conference in North Myrtle Beach on Monday with a representative from the channel, he said. The event will be held at 1:30 p.m. at Prince Resort at the Cherry Grove Pier.

In a deal that has been in the works for a year, the North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach chambers of commerce scored the high-profile spot by agreeing to advertise on the Travel Channel, Dean said.

In February, the North Myrtle Beach City Council agreed to spend $100,000 to help sponsor the show.

“We just felt like it would be a golden opportunity to showcase our community to people all over the United States and in Canada,” North Myrtle Beach Mayor Marilyn Hatley said. “This is really big for our community because Samantha Brown, most of the time, is traveling all over the world and exotic places. I just think we’re very fortunate to be on the same show as those places.”

Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday studied Brown’s show when developing its reality show, "Road Trip: Myrtle Beach," which aired this spring on The Golf Channel, said Bill Golden, president of the golf marketing group.

It’s hard to tell so far how it has helped the local golf business, Golden said. Anecdotally, however, it seems to have been a success. “We can certainly see the effect of the awareness,” he said.

Read more in tomorrow's edition of The Sun News.