The Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau is a dynamic tool for economic development in our cities and throughout Lee County.
We serve the Auburn-Opelika area with physical locations in each Chamber of Commerce and a variety of visitor information distribution points throughout Lee County, including all local hotels and
lodging facilities,
Auburn University, interstate rest stops and welcome centers, and other high-traffic businesses and public facilities.
Our Never Say No philosophy of service has allowed us to expand our tools and programs to areas of business and development in almost every sector of the local economy and to every definition of "visitor" that one could conceive. Besides typical leisure and business travelers, consider others who impact our cities and the programs we've developed to serve them:
Auburn University freshmen and their parents
Local realtors and their clients relocating to our area
Auburn University's full slate of opposing teams for sporting events
New industry and their employees
-The AO Tourism Bureau issued over 100,000 pieces of resource materials to area visitors and inquiries for the 2006-07 fiscal year.
-Thousands of convention bags were provided to attendees, contributing to a 10% increase in room revenue this year. Total reported lodging revenues for 2007 exceeded $30 million.
-The AO Tourism Bureau spends over $250,000 in advertising and promotion for the Auburn-Opelika area each year.
-Our website is visited by over 1500 unique individual users per day.
-Lee County enjoyed over $228 million in direct travel-related revenue for 2006, resulting in 2700 jobs; tourism is the area's second largest employer after Auburn University.
-One Auburn University home game generates visitor spending of over $230 per visitor per day, excluding ticket sales.
