With fall colors already past peak and the first wintery blast having come and gone, you’d think the oncoming winter season would keep people away from such places as Pigeon Forge. Quite the contrary. Fall colors and the subsequent holiday shopping and ski season means busy hotels and cabin rental agencies in Pigeon Forge.
It starts out with the two middle weekends in October. That’s when people really start to pour in. On average, those are the peak weeks for fall foliage in this area, though on occasion the color stretches out to November. Much like it is doing this year.
For the local tourism departments, October is the second most popular month for visiting Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and Sevierville, the first being July.
In addition to the fall colors, the holidays, events, and the kinds of shopping opportunities are more reasons Pigeon Forge cabins and the like will be packed through New Years.
In Pigeon Forge alone, Winterfest as well as Dollywood’s Smoky Mountain Christmas pack a number of events into a two month time period. And now you have countless tours going on around town shuttling people through town to see all the Christmas displays. Couple that with the events and sales offered at places like Five Oaks Tanger Outlet Mall and the Christmas Place and you’ve got one busy region.
And you can’t leave out Ober Gatlinburg in this conversation. Ober Gatlinburg’s shooting for a winter season that starts right after Thanksgiving, and with new snowmaking equipment that allows them to contuously make snow in milder weather conditions, they’re well on their way to doing that. Gatlinburg’s winter season not only brings in tourists and shoppers, but also winter sports enthusiasts who stay in the Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge area.
Currently, Pigeon Forge cabin rentals and hotels have seen a jump in business on both the weekends and the weekdays this fall.
According to the Pigeon Forge tourism department, about 80 percent of people who come to the area this time of year are repeat visitors.