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VOL. 35 | NO. 34 | Friday, August 26, 2011

Flood of tourists lifts city

Hall of Fame, Belle Meade Plantation, Grassmere celebrate record attendance

By Brad Schmitt

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Tourism continues to sag nationwide under strains of a poor economy, high gas prices and brutal temperatures.

But Music City is singing a different song, with three major attractions reporting better than ever attendance and revenues.

The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum and the Belle Meade Plantation are reporting booming numbers – numbers so good that officials don’t want to share them with those who run out-of-town tourist attractions.

“I talk at least once a week with a counterpart from around the nation,” says Alton Kelley, the five-year executive director of Belle Meade Plantation.

“And they’re going, ‘Don’t even tell me how business is, I know it’s terrible.’ And I go, ‘Oh yeah, it’s terrible’ because I don’t want them to know we’re having a very good year.”

Deana Ivey, senior VP of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau, says simply:

“It has been a great run lately.”

Tourism officials attribute the upswings to lingering post-flood love and to more traffic from nearby cities like Louisville and Knoxville.

What kind of upswings?

The Hall of Fame & Museum has had 16 percent more visitors than this time last year, executive director Kyle Young says.

So far this year, more than 311,000 have come through the hall, which usually sees around 435,000 visitors for an entire year, Young says.

“Are we flirting with a half a million?” he asks hopefully. “I dunno.”

The Hall of Fame also reports it’s running 19 percent ahead of budget overall. The store is up 16 percent from this time last year, catering is up and virtually every source of revenue is exceeding expectations.

“You pick up the paper and you go, things are not great,” Young says. “But what is happening here is quite wonderful.”

The zoo also has reported better-than-expected attendance to the Convention & Visitors Bureau.

That’s particularly impressive because the zoo had its best ever annual attendance last year with nearly 634,000 visitors.

And Belle Meade Plantation – a 30-acre site that celebrates a history of horse breeding – is up about 10 percent increase in the last fiscal year to about 170,000 visitors in the 12 months ending June 30.

That increase is in part attributed to the addition of a winery, which is one of the few places in Middle Tennessee that sells wine on Sunday.

“We love Titans football games,” says the plantation’s Kelley.

In fact, each attraction can point to added attractions that may have contributed to more visitors.

The zoo and the country museum, for example, have new exhibits.

The museum in particular has moved to add more displays featuring current stars, attracting a younger and more affluent visitor base.

But officials at all three say Nashville overall has been the beneficiary of goodwill following last year’s floods.

When asked how folks outside could help, they received the universal message: Come visit and spend money.

And visitors are still doing that in droves.

“We were really shown the love,” said CVB’s Ivey. “People really do love us.”

Beyond that, a poor economy helped Nashville attract more visitors from two or three hours away. Families from Kentucky and Tennessee that might’ve headed to Florida beaches will stop instead in Nashville for a few nights.

“We’re centrally located, it’s a great value, we’re not an expensive city to visit,” Young says. “The music thing is here, all that.”

Says Ivey: “When there are tough times, people aren’t gonna give up traveling; they just stay closer to home and travel for a few nights. And Nashville’s a great destination.”

To that end, the Convention & Visitors Bureau has actively pursued tourism traffic from Louisville, Lexington, Knoxville and other cities in a 300-mile radius.

Research shows it’s paying off, with new visitors and more repeat visitors.

“We have to hone in on the events that are happening, festivals or concerts,” Ivey says. “We’re in their face every week saying, ‘Come next weekend for this, this and this.’”

And then, officials say, there’s a general buzz about the city: More national TV talk shows are featuring more country artists, country music is generating more nationally-televised awards shows, national press has focused on the downtown “campus” that includes the Hall of Fame, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the Hilton and the Bridgestone Arena.

“Nashville is an ‘it’ town to visit,” Kelley says.

And tourism officials are very hopeful about the future because of the construction of the new convention center and the doubling in size of the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

“We can look forward to some great publicity about downtown Nashville growing,” Young says. “It’s pretty easy to make the case down the line that there’ll need to be more hotels downtown.”

“You have to put in the equation what it’s gonna be like to have 6,000-7,000 more people downtown, and we’re looking to capture a piece of it,” Kelley adds.

“Something’s up with Nashville, and it’s more than one site. We’re reaping the benefit of the whole.”

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