Shannon Adams, the communications manager for Visit Athens, is looking forward to a new and growing season in the Classic City. This organization, Visit Athens, is dedicated to promoting Athens, Akins Ford Arena and The Classic Center. 

Q: With Spring around the corner, which festival or celebration are you most excited for?

A: Twilight’s really exciting especially because it’s combined with the International Street Fair this year. They’re doing it at the same time, so that’ll kind of give a day-to-night, full-day, itinerary to folks, which is really fun.

Q: How do you ensure these local events benefit local businesses downtown?

A: Our goal is to bring people to Athens, which benefits local businesses. We don’t actually host almost any of the events ourselves. The only event we host is Athen’s restaurant week which is in July.  We are promoting the events that seem the most likely to bring overnight guests so that they are spending more money in the destination, spending more time in the destination, and falling in love with the destination because if you build a place people want to visit , it also makes it a place people want to work, a place people want to live, which makes a place people want to visit. It’s a beautiful cycle. 

Q: How do you balance tourism growth with the needs of local residents and businesses?

A: Luckily, it is very intertwined. It’s kind of a cycle where if you build somewhere people want to come, they want to live here, they want to work here so when we bring folks to town, they’re putting money directly into pockets of local businesses and local taxpayers. We save Athens-Clarke County households… In 2021, it was $600 a year in taxes, because of tourism coming to town. Those goals are intertwined. 

Q: Are we seeing business travel/conventions shifting to Athens that would have gone to other areas? 

A: That’s the hope. When we do our research, most of our overnight guests are in the Atlanta area and the metro Atlanta area. They’re choosing Athens over other drive market range destinations. The goal and what we put a lot of our marketing dollars into is finding those key words that are for people who haven’t decided where they're going yet. So like, north Georgia trips or day trips from Atlanta or you know, those kind of key words that we’re trying to tap into people who don’t know they want us yet.

Q: How are students part of the tourism strategy?

A: I mean, a lot of our tourism strategy focuses on alumni, folks who have nostalgia about Athens and want to come back and visit. Most of the students, like active students, aren't a part of our tourism strategy because they’re already here and you know, are staying here. We do very much focus on students’ families and making sure they know what they can do when they come to visit their student and making sure that they know the good places to stay and eat. You know attractions all around town, and so that's the focus.

Q: What kind of events are you hoping to attract in the future that we don’t have currently?

A: That’s a great question. We’re always looking to attract more music, more music, more music because it’s just part of the life of Athens. We want that reputation to be so known that artists want to be here and to some degree, they do. You know there were amazing bands that started here like our B-52s and now we have amazing bands that are actively here and we just want to continue that legacy.

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