Tourism numbers on the move
New attractions, hotels expected to keep county climbing in rankings
Sunday, May 15, 2005
A record number of tourists and other visitors came to Madison County in 2004, putting it in fourth place in the state's travel industry rankings.
With expansions completed or planned at several local attractions, new hotels being built and site work under way on a large mixed-use development, convention and tourism professionals here believe the numbers will get even better.
More than 2.32 million travelers visited Madison County last year, giving the county the No. 4 ranking in the state, after Baldwin, Jefferson and Mobile counties. Last year's visitor count was ahead of 2003 by 36,209; travel-related spending was more than $646 million, up 14 percent from the previous year.
The figures were included in a 2004 travel industry report prepared by the Center for Business and Economic Development at Auburn University Montgomery for the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel. Across Alabama, some 20.6 million visitors spent more than $7.3 billion.
Is Madison County becoming a tourist hot spot?
"We're doing well now," said Judy Ryals, the president of the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau. With so much growth in the works, Ryals is confident the local tourism and convention industry is about to explode.
She points to the $40 million, 300-room Embassy Suites Hotel under construction next to the Von Braun Center. Ryals has long pushed for an additional downtown hotel so her staff can bid on more and larger events and offer packages with plenty of meeting space and nearby hotel rooms.
Other lodging being built includes a 101-room Hilton Garden Inn near the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and a 104-room Homewood Suites extended-stay hotel in the Village of Providence on the city's west side.
A few of the other future or new attractions that should have an impact on tourism are:
- "World Famous Bridge Street," a $210 million complex in Cummings Research Park, which includes an 11-story, 200-room Westin Huntsville (the first Westin hotel in Alabama) with 45 luxury condominiums on the top five floors and a conference center, about 60 shops and restaurants, office buildings, a 16-screen theater and a 40,000-square-foot Ovation Performing Arts Center.
- A riverwalk project that would run from Big Spring International Park through the new downtown hotel site, connecting Big Spring lagoon with Pinhook Creek.
- New sports and recreation facilities, including the Huntsville Tennis Center and a privately owned skate park in Madison.
- The new welcome center at Burritt on the Mountain - A Living Museum.
- The new NASA Education Training Facility for teacher training activities at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
- The new Alabama A&M University Agribition Center that can accommodate agriculture and livestock events and equestrian shows.
- The North Alabama Birding Trail, scheduled to be dedicated on Sept. 30, which will feature 50 sites across the region, including Madison County Lake, Monte Sano State Park and the Hays Nature Preserve.
Paula Steigerwald, chief executive officer of the Huntsville/Madison County Botanical Garden, expects attendance to get an added boost from a $3.6 million expansion, the fourth phase in its development. Plans call for a nature center with the country's largest seasonal butterfly house, a children's garden, an education center with classrooms and outdoor amphitheater.
Ground-beaking for the nature center and children's garden will be this fall, Steigerwald said, and plans are to open the attractions in June 2006.
The garden attracted a record number of visitors - about 250,000 - in fiscal year 2003-2004.
"Everything we do breaks a record - our membership numbers, our donation numbers, our volunteer numbers," Steigerwald said. "We're still in a growth mode."
Steigerwald's conservative estimate is a 30 percent increase in attendance the first year that the nature center and children's garden are open.
The number of visitors at Monte Sano State Park has grown - 126,730 from last October through April, compared with about 119,000 for the same period the previous fiscal year. Kent Wilburn, the park's manager, attributes the increase to the new lodge, which opened last May and has attracted 12,635 in the last seven months from October through April.
The picnic area and new playground equipment are also big draws, Wilburn said. Many visitors, including parents of children attending Space Camp, often rent cabins at the state park, he said.
"People seem to be staying closer to home," possibly because of higher gas costs or perhaps because of the number of activities here, Wilburn said.
The Convention & Visitors Bureau has launched new efforts to promote the area. A new tourism display and exhibit inside Redstone Arsenal's new Gate 9 Visitors Center will give the bureau a way to reach more Army and NASA visitors. A promotional video highlighting leisure activities across the county will be shown at the bureau's downtown Visitor's Center starting Memorial Day. The video, which features more than 70 locations, was developed by a committee of the Huntsville/Madison County Leadership Class 18.
The bureau also unveiled a new logo last week, its first in more than 10 years. Featuring tiny rockets holding up an antebellum roof, the graphic will soon appear on printed materials and new advertising.
"It incorporates the historical and cultural heritage of Huntsville and the legacy of space exploration," Ryals said. "We hope this will help designate Huntsville as a tourist destination."
© 2005 The Huntsville Times
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