23-05-2025
Atlanta wasn't sold on a Southern Michelin Guide, emails show
Atlanta leaders initially expressed apprehension about lumping the city's Michelin Guide selections with the rest of the South starting next year, according to emails obtained by Axios.
Driving the news: Axios New Orleans' Chelsea Brasted obtained emails exchanged among Michelin staffers and tourism officials over the prestigious travel adviser's new focus on geographic regions, not individual cities.
Catch up quick: Cities and states across the South will collectively pitch in $1.65 million a year in a three-year contract bringing the Michelin Guide to the region.
Caveat: The Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, which lured Michelin to Atlanta in 2023, is in the final year of its three-year, $300,000-a-year contract with the company.
ACVB spokesperson Heather Kirksey told Axios the nonprofit, which is Atlanta's tourism marketing arm, has signed an agreement for 2026 and 2027.
The annual payment for those years will reduce to $225,000. Michelin will cover the same geographic area, Kirksey said.
The intrigue: Some of the emails make reference to the push and pull among tourism agencies and concerns that some states would outshine others.
"Atlanta likes being alone in the South," Liz Bittner of Travel South USA, the marketing agency that helped coordinate the states, said in one of the obtained messages.
However, she said that ACVB president William Pate recognized the new regional guide was likely going to happen and was "willing to find a win-win."
What's inside: The emails also discuss non-disclosure agreements, "sticky" questions from the public about the agreements, and restaurants that the local tourism agencies think showcase their area's range of cuisine.
What they're saying: Kirksey shared the agency's restaurants list with Axios Atlanta. The four-page list is an exhaustive rundown of Atlanta's fine-dining (Bacchanalia) and scrappy upstarts (La Semilla).
Atlanta's relationship with Michelin, Kirksey told Axios, has "exceeded our expectations," boosted Atlanta's culinary scene nationally and internationally and even benefited restaurants that didn't receive recognition.
