ROANOKE, Va. – Visit Virginia's Blue Ridge’s current logo isn't going away. But there's a sub-brand in the works: Bikes, Beer, and Brains.
“That's really our future! The thing about bikes, beer and brains is it makes us hip and cool. People who have never thought of us as a place to visit or a place to live, are now thinking of us,” said president Landon Howard, at Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge.
Howard believes tourism is evolving, so they're evolving with it.
That means marketing toward a "metro mountain mix" of sorts.
“People are coming here by the thousands to mountain bike,” Howard said.
It’s a destination for novice and experienced mountain bikers with half a dozen mountain biking races and 323 miles of trails.
“That's extremely exciting, it's going to have a great economic impact for us,” Howard said.
“Yeah this whole lifestyle of being active is great for everyone,” said owner Wesley Best at East Coasters Bike Shop in Roanoke.
That's only part of the trend Howard sees building the current economic momentum.
“We have 14 breweries just here in the region, so our craft brewery scene is just growing, growing, growing,” Howard said.
Some 12,000 new tourism-related jobs are expected in the region over the next five years, along with a billion dollars in visitors' spending per year.
In a few days, the new logo of a bicycle wheel, a beer mug, and a brain will be printed on an unlimited number of T-shirts.