LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — Travel South USA, the leading industry organization for marketing international travel into the southern United States, has entered into an agreement with the MICHELIN Guide to feature authentic cuisine and restaurants from across its well-known travel region. The MICHELIN Guide was first published a century ago in France and has a worldwide following of travelers who enjoy dining at restaurants that have earned a star or stars from its anonymous inspectors.
The announcement headlined the organization’s Global Week conference, held March 31–April 3, in Louisville, Kentucky. Delegates from a dozen Southern states attended the gathering to attend educational sessions, meet with foreign travel journalists and learn more about Travel South USA cooperative marketing programs available to them.
“We are excited to embark on this new journey for the MICHELIN Guide as this will be the first time since the guide’s North American debut in 2005 that we are launching a regional selection,” said Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the MICHELIN Guides, who joined the group from France via a live remote feed. “The cuisine of the American South is a unique product of diverse influences creating an iconic array of specialties prepared by proud and impressive culinary talent.”
“We’ve always led with our food,” said Liz Bittner, president and CEO of Travel South USA, following the announcement. “James Beard chefs and restaurants are very well-known in this country, but to be included in a MICHELIN Guide is a worldwide designation that is backed by a century of credibility here in the United States and throughout the world. We are the first travel region in America to do this, and we are excited to offer MICHELIN Guide’s discerning culinary travelers our distinctive southern cuisine.”
MICHELIN’s anonymous inspectors are already dining in restaurants across the region for the organization’s first guide to the American South, which will be revealed later in the year. The guides use a one-, two- or three-star rating for restaurants, with three stars being the best. The work of the inspectors remains completely independent to meet the standards required by MICHELIN for the guide’s authenticity.
“We met with MICHELIN Guide officials in Paris last September to discuss this idea,” Bittner said. “They said they had already thought about this region for a guide but were unaware of Travel South USA as a potential partner in the project. There was mutual interest by both parties to create this new guide. It’s worth noting that not all MICHELIN Guide restaurants are necessarily expensive — a rating is also influenced by the local culture and character of the restaurant.”
For the first guide, six Travel South states have signed on: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The city of Atlanta already has a MICHELIN Guide and will also participate.
“We’ll be promoting the MICHELIN name wherever we go throughout the world,” Bittner said. “A marketing theme of ours is based on getting travelers to stay one more night in the South. This program will influence those travel decisions. MICHELIN was founded to make people drive around, and that’s what we want them to do. We want to encourage road trips throughout the South.”
