“Great bar-b-que, great blues, great people,” said Christine Perkins.
She was visiting Memphis with her husband, James, on vacation.
“Just a fabulous place to go. We decided to try it out.”
A new survey by MSN Living ranked Memphis as one of the best travel destinations for 2013.
But it’s not a big deal for the local tourism industry.
“That’s a double-edged sword, said Kevin Kane, president and chief executive officer of the Memphis Convention and Tourist Bureau.
Tourism was more impacted after the 2011 flood than anything a positive or negative survey ranking can do.
“We take the good standings and say good for us,” Kane said. “We take the bad ones as a poor sample.”
The city’s No. 1 attraction – Graceland – gets 600,000 tourists a year. The staff is only concerned with one thing – the next visitor.
We just focus on our day-to day product that we offer our visitors that travel from around the world,” said spokesman Kevin Kern. “We want them to have a great experience when they visit Memphis and Graceland.
The days of the staycation are over, he said. More families are hitting the road to take a real vacation.
“The economy has picked up and there`s greater consumer confidence therefore people are traveling more,” Kern said.
And ignoring surveys – even ones with bad things to say.
“I haven’t seen any of that. I would rank it as a fabulous destination, Perkins said.