Little Love for Some Atlanta Attractions
The city's daily newspaper reminded readers June 27 that Travel + Leisure panned seven of Atlanta's most popular tourist attractions.
ATLANTA -- As far as entertainment went for attendees at this week's Safety 2016 conference and expo, the best event seemed to be Airgas' big "Coming Home Safe 2016" party June 27 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel. A large crowd packed a ballroom to hear a live band and enjoy the open bar and food that included hamburger and barbecue beef sliders, hot dogs, waffle fries, chips, and bags of Cracker Jack. (The event had 16 sponsoring companies, all well-known names in the safety industry.)
Oddly enough, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's website had reminded its audience just that morning that the Travel + Leisure website in 2015 had ripped seven of Atlanta's most popular tourist attractions as overrated. Besides calling The Varsity drive-in "a typical greasy spoon," the T+L article said all of these Atlanta mainstays are subpar:
- World of Coca-Cola
- Underground Atlanta
- Lenox Square Mall
- Atlantic Station
- Skyview Atlanta
- The Georgia Aquarium
Granted, three of those are shopping venues, and Skyview Atlanta is the Ferris wheel outside the Georgia World Congress Center. But however it was intended, the article was poorly timed for thousands of safety professionals visiting downtown Atlanta, especially given that Coca-Cola was the host city sponsor of the event and had a popular booth near the main entrance of the expo, with attendees several times each day passing a Safety 2016 wall and an oversize Coke bottle, both built from Coke 12-packs, as they headed to the expo or educational sessions.