A three-person team has been created to help raise North Augusta’s profile for tourism. The team is under the city’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism department.
The chance to create the team developed in mid-2021, when Director Rick Meyer had a number of employees retiring or resigning and wanted to reorganize the department.
The department was originally called Parks and Recreation. That was changed to Parks, Recreation and Leisure Services and finally to Parks, Recreation and Tourism in 2019.
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He credits Assistant Administrator Rachelle Moody with the idea to create a team that will focus on raising the city’s tourism profile. Meyer sees creating the tourism team as part of the department’s natural evolution.
“We’ve been doing sports tourism for 25 plus years with travel sports, baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, then of course, that culminates with the Nike Peach Jam being our major tourism event from a sporting deal. Tourism’s been with this department in the city for a long time, just really no emphasis on the “T.” So, in 2019, and watching the trends around the country and seeing what we were doing and where we were going, we said, ‘Hey, let’s make a name change for the department,’” said Meyer.
The team is made up of one long-time city employee, Derek Boyd as the Events Coordinator, and two new hires. Phillip Prescott is the Center Coordinator at the Community Center on East Buena Vista Avenue.
The third member of the team is well-known in the Augusta-Aiken area, primarily from his involvement with large scale sporting events. Randy DuTeau, who also helped energize the Columbia County Convention and Visitors Bureau, is Tourism and Marketing Coordination for North Augusta’s tourism team.
“We needed someone who was going to convince people there’s more than just athletics to North Augusta. I got plenty of staff include myself, where our strength lies in athletics. We needed somebody who had more than that. The good thing about Randy, not only does he have that other experience, but he also has athletics, so that when he’s out there at a convention, or he’s somewhere meeting with a group of people, he can fall back on that and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this venue, six indoor gyms, multiple, multipurpose fields and ball fields; you want to come to North Augusta,’” Meyer said.
North Augusta has one major, non-sporting event that draws people to the city. The Jack-O-Lantern Jubilee is held each fall, spread across Georgia Avenue and side streets in the downtown area. The team will be finding ways to market the city’s other attractions, like the Living History Park and Arts and Heritage Center, and other venues including the Palmetto Terrace Ballroom, Sharon Jones Amphitheater and the Savannah River itself.
Meyer said the tourism team can mean an economic boost to the city.
“They’re going to create more economic impact than just a Peach Jam, than just a Jack-O-Lantern Jubilee,” he said, adding, “When a business is looking to locate, they’re looking for not just a great place to live, they’re looking for a place that’s going to generate customers. And if we don’t generate events that generate customers for them, they’re going to go locate somewhere else.”
Helping the tourism team will be a new website being created to focus on what the city offers in terms of quality-of-life events and venues.
During the Jan. 3 meeting, council members selected an Arizona company to build and host the new website. Madden Preprint Media, LLC is based in Tucson, Ariz.
Moody said that after the site is built, the city will manage the site. She expects it to be up and running in the summer of 2022.
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“It’s a best practice for a community to have a stand-alone tourism website to provide a broader range of community and event information,” she explained. “The site will highlight attractions in the city, current events and places for visitors to stay.”
Meyer said, in addition to the new website, the team is responsible for getting out the city’s message on the Parks, Recreation and Tourism social media, including Facebook https://www.facebook.com/northaugusta.recreation and Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/northaugustaparksrecreation/?hl=en
“Randy has done an outstanding job on our PRT Facebook and Instagram. If you’re a social media person, you’re getting the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism information you need right there all day long, every day. He’s helping not just our department, but he’s helping the city. He’s highlighting businesses, restaurants, the neat things about North Augustine. We just haven’t done that in the past. You know, it’s time,” he said.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
