Blue Ridge Hosts Travel Writers’ Convention
Community May 16, 2011
This past weekend Blue Ridge and Ellijay hosted the Georgia Travel Media Marketplace, a program of the Georgia Tourism Division designed to showcase the state’s tourism assets. As FYN reported earlier, the Ellijay and Blue Ridge Chambers of Commerce competed in a bid process with ten other Georgia cities for this great opportunity to promote tourism in our area.Almost 40 writers from the U.S. and Canada, including representatives from a wide variety of publications, visited our area for the event, primarily to get story ideas. Past GTMM events have been held in Savannah, Athens, Macon, Hiawassee, Augusta, LaGrange and Coweta County.
The program started Thursday evening in Blue Ridge, where attendees lodged for the weekend, at a reception and dinner held on the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway. After the reception, the writers toured the art shops of Blue Ridge and had dessert at the Blue Ridge Art Center.
The next afternoon, we caught up with writers Bobby Hickman, of Acworth, Georgia, and Chere Coen, of Lafayette, Louisiana as they made their way through the shops of downtown Ellijay.
The program had already given them a full day of sights and sweets by this point: the group had taken a farm tour and had a mountain breakfast at Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge; visited outdoor adventure destinations in the Aska Road/Toccoa River area; visited Amicalola Falls for lunch and a hiking and biking presentation; and visited R & A Orchards for dessert.
A Bobby and Chere explained, most of the event’s writers specialize in niche fields, like food and wine or destination writing. While both are freelance general writers, Bobby specializes in outdoor adventure work, such as hiking and biking magazine articles. His work has also appeared in Southern Living and Georgia Trends. Chere’s freelance travel writing has been published in AAA Magazine and Southern Travel, among other online and print publications.
Though the attendees had an almost overwhelming amount of ground to cover over the course of the event, Bobby and Chere gave me the impression they were finding much to write about. After touring downtown Ellijay, the group met at Ellijay’s Martyn House for Dinner. The event wrapped up Saturday with the Travel Media Marketplace convention held at the Ellijay Civic Center, followed by a “Barbeque, Bluegrass, and Blue Trails” lunch.
The Georgia Travel Media Marketplace will lead to a range of travel, food, and outdoor adventure articles that promote our area as a world-class tourism destination. If you come across any such articles or TV pieces over the coming months, please let FYN know about it, and we will be happy to show them off.
