The Georgia Film industry was recently named the No. 1 location for feature film locations.

Perhaps no other city in the state has felt benefit of that ranking as strongly as Savannah, where the economic impact of the film industry has increased 13-fold since 2011.

What once was a $26 million impact has blown up to more than $350 million in 2016. That kind of cash influx is massive for local businesses.

I’d recommend all of you check out this feature in the Savannah Morning News about how great the impact of the film industry has been on the city and it’s local businesses.

Lots of Georgia-filmed movies I could have chosen, but this one is a favorite. Don't hate.

One woman moved from California to Savannah and started a production company. She handles hotel bookings for film shoots and averages $80,000-$250,000 in hotel revenue per film shoot. That’s a lot of money back into the community.

We (rightfully) focus on the Georgia Film Academy often in this space. The program is designed to provide a crew base of talent in the state for film productions, but the benefits of the film industry go way beyond the productions themselves.

Local restaurants see increased spending thanks to catering requests. Hotels are packed. Suppliers, like one Savannah Sherwin-Williams store, can see receipts for $350,000 for one job. There are some great anecdotes in the piece I linked. You should check it out.