International Golf Tour Operators Visit Birmingham for North American Convention

More than 300 delegates from 33 countries took Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail to Birmingham to attend the 16th annual North America Golf Tourism Convention and two days of meetings plus two rounds of golf at RTJ Golf Trail’s Oxmoor Valley and Ross Bridge courses.

“It was an absolute pleasure to welcome IAGTO and its global members to Birmingham,” said Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau’s President and Chief Executive Officer Dan Williams. “We hope everyone enjoyed their time here as much as we enjoyed hosting them, and we look forward to welcoming all of our new friends back to Birmingham soon.”

Owned and operated by International Association of Golf Tour Operators, the event saw 70% of the participating golf tour operators and golf travel advisors coming from North America and Latin America, with the remainder from Europe, Australia and Asia.

“Birmingham was the perfect venue for the NAC because it lies at the heart of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, which spans the state of Alabama with some 22 amazing golf courses,” said IAGTO Chief Executive Peter Walton. “We were also able to showcase much of the state from Mobile in the south to Huntsville and Muscle Shoals in the north on pre- and post-convention trips for dozens of tour operators, many of whom had never previously visited Alabama.”

“We have been telling the story of golf in Sweet Home Alabama over the past few years,” said Kerry Teague, golf marketing director of the Alabama Tourism Department. “Now we have been able to have IAGTO members truly experience what that looks, feels, tastes and sounds like.”