TOURISM PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

What is tourism product development? We can give you a long and technical definition, but in essence – tourism product development is a cataloging of possible tourism resources in our community and promoting them to the general public. When we say, “tourism product development,” we are referring to things like the Currahee Military Museum or Lake Toccoa, or even things like the installation of new wayfinding signage and a butterfly garden.

Tourism products are anything in our community that promote it in a tangible way.

How do we know what is considered a tourism product? Well, many of our tourism resources are obvious. Most people will say Toccoa Falls or Camp Toccoa at Currahee first, perhaps, but Toccoa is special in that it has received a visit from a group of people who specifically catalog tourism resources in a community.

In March of 2017, the City of Toccoa received a visit from a Tourism Product Development Resource Team from the Georgia Department of Economic Development. They spent two days in Toccoa analyzing what we have to offer, what we could offer, and how to promote our community. They returned in August of 2017 to report on their findings. But they didn’t just leave.

A visit from a Resource Team means that a community is eligible to receive grant funding focused on the development of tourism resources. Because of their visit, the City of Toccoa received grant funding to construct a Railway Viewing Platform, which was completed in May 2018, and was recently awarded a grant to complete Phase II of our Downtown Wayfinding Signage.

A report is worthless if it collects dust on a shelf.

“Rest assured that we will continue to analyze this report and promote our community through it.”