Friday, April 26, 2024
Visit Granbury was recently awarded two titles in the Texas Travel Awards: Best Visitor Center and Best Tourism-Related Community/Philanthropic Effort for its Goosebump Jump event held in January.
Sponsored by the publishers of San Antonio Magazine, Austin Monthly and Texas Music, the Texas Travel Awards recognizes and celebrates top travel destinations and attractions across the Lone Star State, highlighting the top places, businesses and things to do, according to texastravelawards.com.
Sixty categories were split into two sections of statewide winners and winners of three population breakdowns: Small Market, Mid-Market and Big Market. Each entry was scored by an elite panel of judges that included travel industry professionals, travel journalists and a touring musician. Granbury was represented in the Small Market category.
“We are excited to receive this statewide recognition for Granbury, both for the exciting Winter Guest Goosebump Jump promotion and for our Visitor Center which welcomes over 6,000 visitors annually,” said Tammy Dooley, director of Visit Granbury. “There’s a lot of competition for visitor centers and to be recognized by the state, it was just quite an honor — especially for our staff that worked so hard to make it a friendly place to visit.”
According to the Texas Travel Awards website, Visit Granbury is a “hub of tourism activity,” and “Granbury is a great example of a knowable and welcoming tourism center and staff.”
“The Visitor Center role constantly evolves and adds to the visitor experience. Visitor specialists tell the story of Granbury and the uniqueness we promote — the history, the culture and excitement Granbury has to offer,” the website reads. “The Granbury Visitor Center is a destination in and of itself by being a wealth of knowledge, stakeholder advocacy and place for visitors to be welcomed.”
Visit Granbury is the main pick-up location for the “famous” Granbury Trolley, which transports more than 9,000 visitors each year. The Granbury monarch butterfly mural offers tourists and locals a “selfie” spot, which is promoted as a relatively new visitor favorite.
“We're really proud of the visitor center because not all communities have a Visitor Center that is open seven days a week. It's just a really good place to go and get information, but we also offer hospitality like coffee and complimentary water,” Dooley said. “We are staffed by specialists that are trained of everything that we do there. They are experts on where to get tickets to events, what events are happening, how to find lodging if you need hotels, what restaurants are open on what days — they’ve all been very trained and are very qualified to tell visitors what is going on in Granbury.”
Dooley said she is proud of Visit Granbury to be recognized on a statewide level, not only for the Visitor Center as a whole, but for the recently created Goosebump Jump event.
“It (Goosebump Jump) is a tourism event, but a charity benefit and it’s just a really great way to tie tourism into the community as well,” she said. “This year we’re expanding the event already. We're talking about doing a chili cook off and calling it ‘Chili on the Beach.’ We're partnering with HGMA on that and we’ll just continue to grow that event into a winter festival type event. You would not think of January as a time to jump in the lake but we’ve taken that and made it a time where you have to jump in the lake so we're really excited about it.”
Winners of the Texas Travel Awards receive bragging rights, a spotlight in the Texas Travel Awards publication and recognition on the website and social media.
Dooley added, “It’s something that the community can be proud of that their tourism department is working hard for them and for the staff. It validates that their efforts are being noticed.”
For a complete list of winners visit texastravelawards.com/2022.
