2025 Mid Year Update | Blue Ridge, GA

Chamber Membership

There are many celebrations this year; let us know if you have a milestone anniversary! We are thankful for each of our members who make our community so vibrant.

Total New Chamber Members YTD - 95

Total members - 999

Visitor Center Statistics

We had excellent visitation to each of our three visitor centers. Don't forget that we have wonderful meeting spaces at both our main and Downtown Blue Ridge locations! Learn more about all our centers here.

Visitor stats YTD are below.

Total guests:

Downtown Blue Ridge – 3,400+
Main Center – 2,000+
McCaysville – 2,400+

Our guests who traveled the farthest distance were from Melbourne, Australia.

Social Media

Facebook followers:
@VisitBlueRidgeGA - 158,000 (increase of 5,200)
@FanninCountyChamberofCommerce – 9,500 (increase of 320)
@DiscoverMcCaysvilleCopperBasin – 6,000 (increase of 1,400)

Instagram followers:
@visitblueridgega - 40,900 (increase of 1,400)
@fannincountychamber - 2,300 (increase of 196)
@discovermccaysvillecopperbasin - 2,450 (increase of 134)

#LovingLocal

We remain committed to #LovingLocal as we encourage visitors to enjoy Blue Ridge and Fannin County responsibly, helping to preserve our beautiful natural resources.

Have you seen our latest Conservation efforts? Click here and learn more about our Commitment to Conservation (C2C) program.

All our #LovingLocal initiatives are here!

Website Statistics

We spend a lot of time in our website and remain proud of how it performs! Explore our website here.

Year to date:

Website Sessions – 1,000,000+
Website Page Views – 1,700,000+
New Website Users – 755,000+

ChatGPT and AI are showing up in Google Analytics and changing the landscape of organic search! If you see that your organic search is down, it is happening all over the US in part by AI search summaries. Reach out if you have questions. We are staying up to speed on industry research and our website continues to have phenomenal performance!

NEW! Appalachian Heritage

Have you seen our new Heritage Tours? Take a look here.

Fannin County Hotel/Motel Excise Tax

From January to May 2025, we’ve seen an approximate 5% increase in County hotel/motel (lodging) tax collections, and the City has seen an 11% increase in Q1 collections compared to 2024. Additionally, SPLOST collections to date are 3.4% over last year at this same time.

Why is this significant?
Last year was a great year, and despite the volatile US economy, our community continues to thrive.

Year to date (January–May 2025), the Chamber’s portion of restricted funds totals $1.1 million, with approximately $187,000 dedicated to Tourism Product Development (TPD). Additionally, Fannin County Government has received over $1.1 million in unrestricted funds, with our strongest months still ahead.

Tourism Product Development (TPD) projects:
As noted above, over $187,000 has been allocated to TPD projects to date this year! These capital projects benefit our entire community—residents, visitors, and children of all ages.

Click here for the full list of projects over the years and to explore what we are working on in 2025!

Click here for a little more information about our marketing efforts and why it's important to our community.

Have questions about hotel/motel tax?
Understanding the restrictions and percentage breakdowns can be complex. If
you’d like more information, please email president@blueridgemountains.com or
call 706-632-5680 to speak with Christie Gribble.

Upcoming Events

Leadership Fannin Alumni: August 7th at Twisted Tomato Blue Ridge located at 11 Mountain St., Blue Ridge, GA

Business After Hours: August 12th at the Kiwanis of Blue Ridge located at 124 Jones St., Blue Ridge, GA

Young Professionals Gathering: August 19th at Vertigo Pinball located at 322 West Main Street, Ste. 1, Blue Ridge, GA

Golf Tournament: October 14th at Old Toccoa Farm

All of the upcoming Business After Hours, Ribbon Cuttings, Young Professionals events, etc. can be found on our Chamber Events Calendar.