The hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreational opportunities in Alabama’s Black Belt region have been an unintentional secret for too long.

Alabama Black Belt Adventures Association (ALBBAA) and the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) are changing that as they promote the region for ecotourism and outdoor enthusiasts within the state and throughout the country.

One of the ads RSA and Alabama Black Belt Adventures is running in CNHI newspapers promotes hunting and golf. (contributed)

A series of television ads featuring Ray Scott, founder of Bassmaster, and Jackie Bushman, founder of Buckmasters, extoll the virtues of hunting and fishing in the region. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley even shows up in some of the spots. Arts, culture and barbecue are also threads that run in the ads.

RSA is using time on the Raycom Media television stations it owns and space in the Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. (CNHI) that it financed to promote recreation and tourism in the Black Belt’s 23 counties. The collaboration is paying off.

View the television ads here.

“Since 2013, visits to the Black Belt Adventures’ website have almost doubled with more than 60,000 outdoor enthusiasts learning about our region’s recreational assets. We attribute RSA’s donated media placements as a major factor to this success,” said ALBBAA founder and chairman Thomas Harris. “From the website, people from all over the country find perfect hunting and fishing grounds and spots for great outdoors vacations. It’s because Dr. Bronner and the RSA invested in TV and newspapers that the Alabama Black Belt is able to tell its story on a national stage, from New York to Honolulu.”

“Dr. Bronner” is David Bronner, head of the RSA.

Dr. David Bronner, head of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, is leveraging the RSA’s investments in television stations and newspapers to boost tourism in Alabama. (contributed)

RSA has been leveraging its investments in Raycom and CNHI for years to promote tourism in the state and boost interest in the Robert Trent Jones (RTJ) Golf Trail, a series of golf courses in the state that RSA also owns.

Bronner said when Harris pitched the idea of using some of that advertising time and space to boost the Black Belt, he was all for it.

“Being in Alabama all of these decades, we have seen it has been tremendously difficult to promote the Black Belt for economic development,” Bronner said.

Bronner said the lack of infrastructure, low population and a skilled workforce are among the Black Belt’s shortcomings often cited by economic developers. What it doesn’t lack is an abundance of land and waterways for hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and other recreational uses. The rising number of hunting and fishing lodges and restaurants catering to those enthusiasts is also among the region’s assets. There are even some RTJ golf courses mixed in.

Organized hunts are boosting tourism in Alabama’s Black Belt. (Nik Layman/Alabama NewsCenter)

“What (Harris) was talking about made perfect sense,” Bronner said. “I knew Black Belt Adventures didn’t have the ability to pay for a large-scale advertising campaign like we could make possible through Raycom and CNHI.”

RSA used the media reach of Raycom (53 television stations in 37 markets in 18 states) and CNHI’s more than 130 newspapers to promote the Black Belt. The advertising was valued at more than $4.2 million and has spread the word from the Americus Times Recorder in Georgia to The Cullman Times in Alabama to The Muskogee Phoenix in Oklahoma to The Daily Item in Pennsylvania and beyond.

“My overall focus is to provide strong returns to the Retirement Systems of Alabama,” Bronner said.

Bronner said a couple of decades ago he looked at a U.S. map and realized that every year a large number of people were traveling from northern states to Florida.

More than 50 lodges, like Chapron in Demopolis, have popped up in Alabama’s Black Belt to support the growing hunting and fishing tourism. (Nik Layman/Alabama NewsCenter)

“It was like an hourglass and those people could either pass through Georgia or pass through Alabama,” Bronner said. “We needed to give them reasons to funnel through Alabama and even stop along the way.”

The RTJ golf trail has done that. Bronner and RSA have used Raycom and CNHI to promote other venues, destinations and events in Alabama.

In the two dozen years since the first RTJ courses opened, more than 11 million rounds of golf have been played there. Bronner noted that before the RTJ, tourism in Alabama was a $1.8 billion industry. The most recent figures put that number at close to $12 billion annually.

“Black Belt Adventures now offers visitors other great reasons to come back to spend time and money in our state,” Bronner said. “From golf and spas to hunting and other outdoor adventures, tourism spending helps Alabama financially while enhancing our image internationally. These efforts make Alabama stronger, which is our ultimate goal.”

Tom Lanier, owner of Shenandoah Plantation in Union Springs, said tourism is a sustainable industry in the Black Belt, and a number of small businesses like his are proving the viability.

One of the ads Alabama Black Belt Adventures Association and the RSA is running in CNHI newspapers. (contributed)

“Shenandoah has seen the benefits from the efforts of ALBBAA and the contributions from RSA have contributed significantly to the growth of the industry,” Lanier said. “We are seeing visitation reach the levels experienced prior to the recession. It’s a valuable marketing tool that helps us to promote Shenandoah Plantation and brand the region as a hunting destination.”

Nearly 3,000 potential visitors have inquired about a Black Belt visit through the ALBBAA website. Nearly one-third of respondents to recent ALBBAA inquiries said that these television and newspaper ads inspired them to seek more information and visit Alabama’s Black Belt for hunting, fishing and other adventures.

“We are thankful for Dr. Bronner’s generosity and his understanding that tourism is a thriving economic development tool for the Black Belt region and all of Alabama,” said Pam Swanner, ALBBAA project director. “Leveraging state resources with RSA media outlets is a winning combination. Dr. David G. Bronner, like our board of directors, is dedicated to helping Alabama attract visitors and tourism dollars to a region that relies heavily on the outdoors industry as a sustainable revenue source.  We’re thrilled with the results of this advertising campaign.”