Bacon, bourbon and beautiful nature. Not to mention fabulous food, marvellous music, Black history, beaches, museums, wine and wonderful cities such as Nashville and New Orleans.
There are a lot of reasons Canadians flock to the southern states of the U.S. But tourism officials would like to see a titch more travel from north of the border.
Travel South, a collection of 12 southern states (minus Florida, which does its own marketing, thank you) rolled into Canada’s biggest city on 30JAN to trumpet some of their top destinations and activities. They were kind enough to bring along a top chef from South Carolina, a Canadian bourbon expert from Maker’s Mark and former American Idol winner (season five), Taylor Hicks.
Liz Bittner, president and CEO Travel South, said her organization has been coming to Canada to build up cross-border travel since the late 1960’s.
“I can’t tell you how much we love Canadian visitors,” Bittner said. “Canada is our number one inbound visitor market.”
Bittner and Michael Mangeot, Travel South board member and Commissioner for the Kentucky Department of Tourism, said there were 2.89 million Canadian visitors to the 12 Travel South states in 2019. Those visitors spent $1.1 billion USD.
The 2023 numbers were almost back to that level, they said in a two-on-one interview with Open Jaw….
