Vera Ann Myers has been busy booking birthday parties, company picnics and a pair of weddings. Her staff at Myers Pumpkin Patch are setting up craft stations and picking produce, a required task “to meet the demands for our busiest season.”
“I think people come to the site searching for farm fun. People are coming back to a farming atmosphere,” said Myers, owner of the Bulls Gap venue. “It is definitely the busiest time of year for us.”
It was a similar story at Hartman’s Corn Maze, located off the Blue Springs Parkway in Mosheim.
“September and October, it is prime time — more especially October,” said owner Bruce Hartman.
Hartman was working Friday on a new amusement, dubbed “zombie land,” an attraction that allows visitors to fire paint balls from military trucks at “zombies.”
“It’s all pretty good. We use a lot of technology here,” Hartman said. “We stay really busy.”
Communities throughout Appalachia cite an uptick in tourists during the fall, thanks in part to the growing agribusiness industry, as well as to state and national parks that lure visitors.
The Limestone-based Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park gains out-of-town guests from the popular storytelling festival in Jonesborough that happens in October, Park Manager Bill Knapp said.
“At that time of year, people also like to come see the leaves change. The aesthetics of the place, I guess you could say, draw people,” Knapp said. “We do see a rise in visitors during the fall.”
Greene County enjoys an average increase in tourist activity between 27 and 33 percent from September through October, figures from the Greene County Partnership show.
“One of the major draws for our region is the colors,” said Partnership Tourism Director Tammy Kinser.
“The interest in change of colors, it creates an opportunity for travel and an increase in overall economic impact on our community.”
In short: If agribusiness is the arms and legs of the tourist industry, earning cash and generating sales tax, then the county’s natural landscape is the heart.
In Greene County, hikers, picnickers and sightseers have many opportunities to relish autumn.
“Fall is a very popular time of year throughout the Cherokee National Forest. A significant amount of annual forest visitation occurs during the fall of the year,” said Terry McDonald, of the U.S. Forest Service, public affairs staff officer for the Cherokee National Forest.
“The majority of this visitation is driving for pleasure — day use. Thousands of people enjoy driving through the East Tennessee mountains to view the brilliant color changes.”
The Forest Service doesn’t track the number of single-day users — visitors who fish, hike or drive through — at sites such as the Paint Creek or Horse Creek recreation areas — because those areas offer multiple entry points, McDonald said.
Popular destinations throughout the county include the top of Camp Creek Bald (Viking Mountain), the paved Paint Creek Corridor, Margarette Falls and the Horse Creek Recreation Area.
A study released earlier this month by Western Carolina University cited the potential for speculator fall color in their more-tourists-than-normal prediction.
The geography of their report covered counties in western North Carolina, as well as Blount, Monroe and Sevier counties in Tennessee.
Low gasoline prices and the chance for vivid fall foliage were the leading factors in forecasting a 4 percent growth in tourism in fall 2015 for portions of East Tennessee and neighboring North Carolina.
Officials in both states foresee spectacular fall color in 2015. Dr. Timothy McDowell, a biology professor at East Tennessee State University, expects peak color in Greene County during late-October.
On Thursday, Kinser credited the area’s mountainous landscape when she noted a “marked upswing” in the average of per-trip spending in the third quarter (July through September) and the fourth quarter (October through December).
“In our case, our history and our story can be told at any time. Our visitation isn’t as weather driven as, for example, a theme park or water-based attraction,” Kinser said.
“We have an abundance of outdoor activities such as hiking and biking that take an upswing in the fall of the year as well as visitation to the Cherokee National Forest.”
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