MONTEZUMA — The Montezuma Downtown Development Authority, Oglethorpe Better Hometown and Macon County Chamber of Commerce met recently to discuss ways to promote Macon County’s biggest asset: the Flint River. Montezuma’s Downtown Development (DDA) Manager, Camille Bielby, attended a very informative RiverWays South meeting to find out how to do that.

A relevant goal of the organization is to promote economic development in the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint River basins through ecotourism, agritourism, heritage tourism and cultural tourism. The organization and the University of Georgia Fanning Institute's Project Riverway have assisted many communities more rural and smaller than Macon County in linking the diverse inland visitor attractions with the traveling public. They have also helped to identify opportunities for entrepreneurs to establish commercial enterprises that can draw a revenue stream from this growing tourism market.

RiverWay South has added an interactive map to the website  — http://riverwaysouth.org/map/view — that will allow direct input of sites and points of interest. It is a way that the Montezuma DDA can make visitors who will already be in the area aware of the many things to see and do besides driving through the county en route to Andersonville, Perry or Cordele.  

In addition to getting some dots on the map for the Flint River Basin, adding information on Macon County and Montezuma will enable the website to include locations in the region on customized tours that can be directly generated by the site's visitors. The Montezuma DDA has entered points of interest for Macon County including historic downtown Montezuma, the Macon County Historical Museum, Troy’s, Josie’s, La Casa Maya, Brown's and Kauffman's farm markets, Whitewater Park, Hooks and Crooks Landings, Montezuma Bluff Wildlife Management Area, Flint River Farm School Preservation Park, Barker's Market Bait and Tackle, and the Mennonite community.

Visit the site and use the online comment form to share your ideas on developing Macon County's visitor market through the advantages of being connected by the Flint River and Whitewater Creek. Find out more about Montezuma at www.downtownmontezuma.com.