J U L Y 2 0 1 1 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

What’s Happening On the 4th?

Fairhope Fireworks display at Fairhope

Pier (9:00) with Baldwin Pops per-formance (7:30). ———————-

Daphne Independ-ence Celebration

Trione Sports Complex, begins at

dusk. ———————-

Battleship Alabama Fireworks & Music Live music at 7:00 Fireworks at 8:45

Happy July 4th!

How Travel Makes You Smarter, Sexier & More!

Hello! I’m Ginger, your friendly tourism director here at the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce. Each quarter I will be sending an e-newsletter to our membership and tourism partners with the latest news and trends in tourism. Did you know that the travel and tourism industry generates $134 billion in annual revenues and directly supports 1.8 million U.S. jobs? And 40,500 of those jobs are in Baldwin county alone. We know tourism is BIG business!

Welcome to the first issue of ‘Shore Lines’!

1. Travel makes you younger!

David Eagleman, recently profiled as ‘The Possibilian’ in the “New Yorker’ studies time perception at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and has made many experiments regarding how life-threatening moments feel slowed down.

Eagleman believes adults’ sense of time is more ‘compressed’ than children’s, but that travel to new or ‘novel’ places – the more ex-otic, the better – is an equalizer of sorts. ‘It essentially puts you, neutrally, in the same position as when you were a child.’

Travel: the fountain of youth! And, with its perceived time-stretching possibilities, a life-saver even if you only take a week or two for vacation this summer. 2. Travel makes you smarter

It’s an old cliché that travel broadens your mind. However, a recent psychological study at Indiana University found that students had broader answers when they thought the study was imported from Greece, rather than home-grown. What the researchers call ‘psychological distance’ – what we might call ‘armchair travel’ – increases your creativity. A recent review of the psychological distance

concepts suggests that travel, or even planning travel and imagining yourself in an unfamiliar distant loca-tion, might not just improve creativity but self-awareness as well.

3. Travel makes you more productive

Americans’ relative lack of holiday time is some-times defended as a strong ‘work ethic’, and a reason the country is so productive. But is it?

France, for example, takes off 60% more days off (40 compared to the USA’s 25), and records 98% GDP per hour worked. While the USA remains the world’s top ‘competitive’ country, runner-up, Switzerland, nearly matches the US mark with a week more vacation time.

4. Travel makes you sexier

It’s not just a tan you return with, but stories. Ac-cording to one survey, by ItsJustLunch.com, the best first-date conversation topic was hobbies, with travel following second. Somehow manage to combine the two, and brace yourself Romeo. Just be sure to have exchanged your Paraguayan guaraní into dollars be-fore the bill arrives.

And if travel has already done its job by making you more creative, youthful, self-aware and produc-tive, you’re bound to be looking pretty good out there!

Condensed from Robert Reid, Lonely Planet

Shore Lines Daphne Fairhope Spanish Fort

Blakely Malbis Belforest Montrose Point Clear Barnwell

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September 24-25 Olde Towne Daphne

Just The Facts...

Arts & Crafts Festival Celebrates 60!

23rd Annual Jubilee Festival September 24 & 25

Come join Festival Chair Shea Dean and the rest of the committee (and about 30,000 other folks) at the 2011 Jubilee Festival in Olde Towne Daphne in front of City Hall.

The festival is two full days of fantastic live enter-tainment featuring local talent on the festival stage including dance troupes, belly dancers, ballroom

dancers, singers and intro-duction of the Dogwood Trail Maids.

A Kid’s Activity area will allow children to explore their creative side and give Mom something to display on the mantle.

Over 75 artists will be displaying their work in the categories of decorative and traditional crafts, wood, watercolor, jewelry, pot-tery, sculpture, graphics

And don’t forget to check out the food court! Kettle corn, BBQ, Sno cones, ice cream, lemonade, every food group will be repre-sented and offer the perfect compliment to your festi-val visit. So load up the car (please leave the family pets at home) and head to Daphne for the Jubilee Festival! You’ll be glad you did!

FREE ADMISSION!!

Big plans are in the works for the 60th Anniversary of the Fairhope Arts & Crafts Festival!

Debbie Floyd recently accepted the position of Festival Chair for this momentous festival. She and committee members along with the Chamber will soon be putting the plans into motion as we prepare to welcome over 275,000 visitors and 200 artists to downtown Fairhope for the three day event. The festival was chosen as one of the top 20 events in the southeast by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and it was voted in the top 20 out of 100 Best Predominantly Classic & Contemporary Craft Shows in the nation by Sunshine Artist Magazine in 2010.

This is a perfect opportunity for members to partner with the Chamber in offering festival goers a package deal including special room rates, transportation, meals and attractions! Call Ginger at 621-8222 for more information.

Tourism represents a $9 billion industry in Alabama. ES Chamber tourism figures for Spanish Fort, Daphne & Fairhope (2005-2009) • Travel Related Visitor 3,135,174 • Money Spent by Visitors $1,466,611,884 • Travel related Payroll $596,576,131 • Local Tax Revenue Generated $4,106,513

S H O R E L I N E S

Statistics compiled by the Alabama Tourism Department “Travel Economic Impact 2009”

The 60th Annual

Fairhope Arts & Crafts

Festival

March 16, 17 &18

2012

1952 -

2012

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Points of Interest….. From an article by Guy Busby, Mobile Press Register, 5/11: Two Baldwin County walking trails are among 21 routes around Alabama designated a National Recreation Trail on Thursday. The A. Perry Wil-bourne Antique Rose Trail in Foley and the Vil-lage Point Preserve Trail in Daphne were among the walkways to receive the designation from the U.S. Department of the Interior as part of National Trails Day. One Mobile County route, the Citronelle Walking Trail, was also included on the list. The trails will be added to a list of Alabama routes that also in-cludes the 36-mile Eastern Shore Trail and the 7.5-mile Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail in Orange Beach and the Alabama Gulf State Park. The Daphne trail passes through areas once inhabited by native tribes, a colonial community known as French Village and the D’Olive Plantation. The trail also passes the tree known as Jackson’s Oak. The tree is sometimes said to be the site where Andrew Jackson spoke to his troops during the War of 1812 before the American attack on Pen-sacola. While that story has not been confirmed by modern histori-ans, the tree has been known as Jackson’s Oak since the 19th cen-tury. The National Recreation Trails Program recognizes walkways of regional significance to encourage the use and care of existing trails and stimulate the development of new scenic pathways, ac-cording to the statement.

Governor’s Conference on Tourism (registration available online) Online registration and an agenda list for the 2011 Alabama Governor’s Conference on Tourism is available at www.algovernorsconference.com. The conference is being held July 23-26 at the Marriott Shoals Hotel & Spa in Florence and is taking

place during the W.C. Handy Festival in celebration of The Year of Alabama Music.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011: “Focus on Moving Beyond the Downturn” Tourism competitiveness is an important economic indicator. It is a major element in eco-nomic stimulation packages. Tourism is among the largest employers in most countries and also a fast-lane vehicle into the workforce for young people and women. Encouraging travel boosts consumer and business confidence, it strength-ens two-way trade and pro-motes export income. After a difficult period that recast much of the Travel & Tourism (T&T) industry’s land-scape, the sector is slowly re-covering from the economic downturn. In this context, the fourth edi-tion of The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report is re-leased at a time when the in-dustry is looking forward with cautious optimism and explor-ing new and innovative ways of ensuring successful develop-ment. Download the full report at the World Economic Forum website.

C O N T R I B U T E T O T H E F U T U R E O F Y O U R I N D U S T R Y ! Make a difference and donate a gift to the 2011 Alabama Governor’s Conference on Tourism’s silent auction.

A contribution from you will help raise money for the Alabama Hospitality & Tourism Industry Scholarship Fund. Call Ginger at 621-822 to donate

The 2012 conference will be held on the Eastern Shore at the Grand Hotel so this is a good way to show off your merchandise or services to attendees and their families who are looking for something to do during their visit next year!

Mission: to aggressively grow tourism along the

Eastern Shore.

Goals include:

• Implement marketing cam-paign for the Eastern Shore promoting Fall and Spring Events.

• Develop Tourism Web-pages linking to existing content on eschamber.com

• Open meetings—Hold one meeting per quarter for all Chamber tourism partners.

• Tourism enews—develop tourism enews to distribute to members, keeping them abreast of newsworthy items. in the industry.

MEETING ANNOUCEMENT

An Open Meeting of the

2010-2011 Tourism Council will be held on Tuesday,

July 19, 8:00 a.m.

Daphne Civic Center

‘Shore Lines’ is a quarterly newsletter and distributed by email to Chamber members and industry partners.

If you do not want to be included on our mailing list for this publi-cation please send an email to:

gparnell@eschamber.com

Eastern Shore Tourism Council

Tourism Growth Slowed in Early 2011 US Commerce Department Growth in U.S. travel and tourism spending slowed in the first quarter of 2011 as consumers cut back on air travel in the wake of skyrocketing prices, according to a Commerce Department report. Inflation-adjusted tourism spending increased 0.6% to a $662.8 billion annual rate in the first three months of 2011. That compares to a 2.6% rate in the fourth quarter of 2010. The big decrease in spending on plane tickets was offset by growth in spending for hotels, shopping, restaurants and bars. Tourism spending, like the economy more broadly, slowed considerably after a strong rebound last year. Overall travel and tourism spending has increased seven quarters in a row, but the 0.6% first-quarter increase is way down from the 4.9% growth for all of 2010. Air travel has been particularly hard hit by higher fuel prices. The price of air travel jumped 21.4% in the first quarter, prompting a 9.9% decline in overall air travel spending. The price for accommodations, meantime, fell 3.2% — and accommodation spending grew in response. Tourism employment rose at a 2% annual rate in the first quarter, compared with 1.6% in the fourth quarter of 2010. That was better than the overall economy, which saw employment increase 1.3% in the first quarter and 0.8% in the previous three months.

Is Tourism Slowing Down? S H O R E L I N E S P a g e 4

2010-2011 Tourism Council* Ben Meisler, Chairman

Holiday Inn Express-Daphne Heiko Einfield

Holiday Inn Express-Fairhope Bill Tunnell

USS Alabama Battleship Andy Ray

Timbercreek Golf Tracy Pierce

Original Oyster House Chuck Cuff

Homewood Suites Dale Elks

Wings Margaret Thigpen

Daphne Civic Center Cindy Renkert

5 Rivers Delta Center David Calametti

Discover Gulf Coast AL Lauren Kessler Beef O’Brady Pete Blohme

Fairhope Merchants Darrelyn Bender ES Chamber Ginger Parnell ES Chamber

*New tourism council members will be appointed 7/2011