gatlinburg lodging hospitality association

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Make Gatlinburg Your Destination!

The purpose of the Gatlinburg Lodging & Hospitality Association Incorporated is to represent the common interest of our members in the hospitality industry including political action, education and industry advancements in an ethical and professional manner.

Why Do Families Continue Their Family Traditions Year after Year?

What Is It About Gatlinburg? It's a little place: Gatlinburg. About two miles long by five miles wide. On its own, it's just a sleepy little mountain town with mostly good neighbors. A couple of the family names go all the way back to 1800 or so, some of them. A handful of families can trace back to the White Oak Flats days of 1835. The story goes that Radford Gatlin opened a general store in the 1850s and agreed to handle the new mail service, so the postmark became Gatlinburg in 1856. Unless you can trace your name back to the mid 1800s, you're not really from here, you're just a' visitin'.
Things stayed pretty quiet around Gatlinburg for a long time, but then there came a big park in the 1930s. Great Smoky Mountains National Park big name, big park. Quite a few families had to move so the park could be there where they'd lived for so long, so many generations, but they moved.

There was just something about regular everyday people buying up 800 square miles of land to give to the government that made the families realize that something big was about to happen.Big, indeed! Now boasting over nine million visitors a year, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has transformed Gatlinburg from a sleepy little town of 70-plus years ago into the perennial mountain getaway choice by generations of families. Here you will find many family choice lodging properties surrounded by the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. 'Come let us be your home away from home'