State tourism officials are always working to make Kentucky a common vacation destination. The Commonwealth will next week be a popular site for golf fans.
The men's PGA Golf Championship is being staged next week for the third time at Valhalla Golf Club, just outside Louisville. Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism Commissioner Mike Mangeot says area hotels and restaurants will fill up and hopefully, visiting golfers will return to spend dollars at Kentucky courses and other businesses. "We get a lot of travelers from the north. We are the northern most southern state, so we like to say you have a longer golf season here. And it's one of those things, just like I was saying earlier is we have to get the message out that that's available, and I think they will come," said Mangeot.
Mangeot says with 175,000 jobs, the state's tourism industry is the third most profitable trade in Kentucky. The travel and tourism commissioner offered his thoughts to Lexington Rotarians Thursday. He says the state will score some major publicity during the international broadcast of next week's game. "We're involved with them, obviously from a promotional standpoint. As part of our sponsorship deal with them, we're gonna have four television spots, international television spots, which is not something, with our budget, we could go out and buy on our own, for that kind of exposure," said Mangeot.
Mangeot likens the exposure and tourism impact of the PGA to that found when Kentucky hosted the World Equestrian Games and to the annual NASCAR event in Sparta.?
The PGA Championship takes place at Valhalla Golf Club beginning next Thursday, August 7th.