Tourism

  Don MacNeil is the former Marketing Director of Windsor Jewelers and long-time on-air radio professional.   Is it just me, or… Retracing Masters Footsteps When I was young, my dad made a habit of pulling off the highway if a Civil War battlefield were anywhere around. It’s not that I wasn’t interested, it was more that I couldn’t see the point. There was no way, I thought, that any of this looked the way it did a hundred years earlier, so why bother? Still, I could tell that Dad

Columbia County tourism has a major economic impact not only on the CSRA, but also on the state of Georgia, according to Shelly Blackburn. Blackburn, Executive Director of the Columbia County Convention and Visitors Bureau, will serve as a guest speaker at the next CSRA Home Connections Networking Breakfast on Wednesday, April 13 at 8:30 a.m. at the Snelling Conference Center, next to Edgar’s Grille at the corner of Washington and Furys Ferry roads. “Columbia County is growing and prospering, and Visit Columbia County plays a key role in that

We all know the leisure and hospitality sector has been hardest hit by the pandemic. Leisure and hospitality employment in the Augusta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has fallen from more than 28,000 pre-pandemic to 24,000 in December 2021. The leisure and hospitality sector includes hotels and restaurants as well as arts, entertainment and recreation. However, there is some good news from the hotel section of the industry as reported by Smith Travel Research. In Richmond County, both occupancy rates and revenues per available room (RevPAR) were generally higher in 2021

In his Business Minute, Neil Gordon reports on Mary Kay’s regional career event that will make a big impact on Augusta’s economy.

Because Augusta’s film industry has experienced explosive growth in recent years, Augusta Technical College wants to prepare people to work in that industry. The college has partnered with the Georgia Film Academy and a local company called Indiegrip.com LLC (see photo above story) to begin offering an 18-hour non-credit film production certification program in January 2022. Classes will meet on Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the cost will be $750. Rick Kelly – Indiegrip.com’s owner/operator, is excited to be involved in the program. “Our mission has always