Greater Raleigh Tourism e-News
Welcome to the Greater Raleigh Tourism e-News … presented by the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau (GRCVB). Please let us know about any news pertaining to Wake County's billion dollar visitor industry for possible inclusion in future issues.
IN VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4:
CVB Strikes Gold
New Look 2006 Visitors Guide
2005 Cooperative Marketing Opportunities
Billion Dollar Visitor Industry Grows 5%
2005 Annual Luncheon Highlights
2004/05 Annual Report Now Available
More NCAA Championships on Tap
Role Reversal
Dateline Raleigh
Events Through Next Month
CVB Strikes Gold
The GRCVB has named Loren Gold as its new Director of Sales. Gold officially started July 11 and is charged with helping sell Raleigh's new convention center slated to open in Spring 2008 and generating business for many other Capital City area meeting facilities and almost 13,700 hotel rooms, including four upscale hotel properties slated to open the next few years. In doing so, he will retool the Bureau's internal efforts as there are plans to bolster the CVB sales staff with three new additions in the coming months.
Boasting a decade of senior sales management experience, Gold previously held positions in the hotel and CVB industries in the Washington, DC, area. He was most recently Director of National Sales in Wyndham International's DC National Sales Office with sales responsibility to 130 Wyndham properties and started his career as a National Sales Manager for Marriott Hotels and Resorts following graduation from Arizona State University.
Gold's initial CVB experience was as Regional Director of Sales in DC for the Denver Metro CVB. The Northern Virginia native then founded the first United States Company dedicated exclusively to multiple CVB representation as City Reps Inc. generated meeting and tradeshow business leads for Bureaus in Cincinnati, Houston, Long Beach, Memphis, Minneapolis, Providence and San Jose.
New Look 2006 Visitors Guide
Befitting all the product improvements throughout the area with new openings, renovations and construction, the GRCVB is following suit by rolling out an entirely new concept with its 2006 Visitors Guide to Raleigh and Wake County.
It will partner with Our State Custom Publishing (OSCP) - which also produces the highly-acclaimed Our State Magazine - as OSCP will handle the majority of production, design, editorial and advertising elements of a traditional magazine size publication (four color from cover to cover). Though bidding a fond farewell to its long-time digest size guide, it will continue to honor advertising agreements for 2006 and keep the ad rates close to previous year levels.
The 2006 edition is slated to arrive on December 8 with ad sales running now through September 15. For ad information, contact Bill Hammond at 800-948-1409 or bhammond@ourstate.com. Other questions can be directed to Martin Armes at 919-645-2654 or marmes@visitraleigh.com.
2005 Cooperative Marketing Opportunities
There are many ways to leverage CVB programs and assist your business goals through the area's billion dollar visitor industry.
Some exciting cooperative partnerships have been developed that offer ways to join forces with CVB campaigns via online, magazine, newspaper and guidebook advertising with participation rates starting from $250. The Bureau has been able to negotiate unprecedented affordable rates in Southern Living and Our State Magazine, not to mention four online endeavors.
For more information about these co-op marketing opportunities, please contact the Bureau's director of partnership and tourism marketing Shawn Braden at 919-645-2663 or sbraden@visitraleigh.com.
Billion Dollar Visitor Industry Grows 5%
Visitors to Wake County poured $1.14 billion into the local economy in 2004, or $3.11 million per day, according to the Travel Industry Association of America's (TIA) annual study. Wake County ranks No. 2 among North Carolina's 100 counties in terms of visitor spending, trailing only Mecklenburg County ($2.7 billion). Rounding out the top five are Guilford County ($894 million), Dare County ($619 million) and Buncombe County ($539 million).
The Wake County total of $1.14 billion represents a 5.0 percent increase from last year's figure of $1.08 billion. Overall, the statewide increase for domestic visitors was 4.9 percent, up to $13.3 billion. Visitor spending in the Capital City area generated almost $91 million in state ($57.38 million) and local ($33.35 million) tax receipts last year, according to TIA. Equally important, those tax revenues generated $321.43 in total savings per local household in state and local taxes.
2005 Annual Luncheon Highlights
The News & Observer and the Town of Cary's Mary Henderson were honored by more than 430 attendees on July 13 with major awards at the Bureau's 18th annual luncheon recognizing the area's billion dollar visitor industry.
John K. Smith, retired General Manager of the Georgia World Congress Center, delivered the keynote speech and shared lessons about the significant economic benefits gained for the entire downtown Atlanta area and how the business community leveraged those convention and visitor opportunities. Meanwhile, luncheon emcee Jim Cain challenged the attendees to partner more with the Bureau to extend their marketing reach and business objectives, recognize the Bureau and visitor industry as important entities improving our area's economic vitality, improve signage, wayfinding, parking and transportation, build a new visitor center and advocate even more marketing resources for the new convention center and destination promotion.
With some of the luncheon's focus on being a good industry partner, The News & Observer became the first company ever to receive the Thad Eure, Jr. Memorial Award for its positive coverage of many of the visitor-oriented events the GRCVB helped bring to the area and for the support for the cultural events so important to residents and visitors alike. As Director of the Cary Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources for over 10 years, Mary Henderson was the 10th recipient of the John B. Ross, Jr. Leadership Award for helping transform the Town of Cary into a cultural, live music and sports hotbed.
Pictured (l-r): Mary Henderson, Jim Cain and 2004 John Ross Award Winner Dr. Betsy Bennett.
2004/05 Annual Report Now Available
A printed version of the Bureau's 18th Annual Report can be obtained by contacting Linda Bonine at 919-645-2662 or lbonine@visitraleigh.com. More comprehensive information can also be accessed online with full details about sales, sports, destination and partnership marketing, etc.
More NCAA Championships on Tap
The NCAA has selected NC State to host and the RBC Center to serve as the venue for one of the eight first- and second-round sites of the 2007 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship. NC State last hosted the first and second rounds in 2003 and the RBC Center hosted the women's first and second rounds in 2001. In 2008, the both will team up to host similar action in the Men's Basketball Championship.
Meanwhile, NC State, the Town of Cary, Capital Area Soccer League and the GRCVB have joined forces to the host NCAA College Cup Soccer for Women in 2006 and Men in 2007 – thus ensuring five straight years of Final Four Soccer in the area (Women in 2003/04 and Men in 2005) at SAS Soccer Park.
Role Reversal
Having spent the past seven years helping recruit all types of sporting events to venues throughout Wake County, director of sports marketing Scott Dupree was the supportive parent following his 8 year old son Davis (second from right on second row) and the West Raleigh All-Star baseball team win its final 16 games in Washington, N.C., and Lake City, Fla., en route to the Cal Ripken League Southeast Regional Rookie Championship. Having traveled most of the summer with the team, Scott and the Dupree family can certainly validate the significant economic impact of sporting events on host communities.
Dateline Raleigh
Said of the Hobbit Garden in the July 21 issue of The New York Times, "Willie Pilkington and John Edward Dilley have defied the heat for 25 summers to create two successive gardens that are so dense with unexpected plants, and so inventive in their layout, that they have become a popular example of how suburbia can be transformed."
Said of Raleigh in a significant feature story in the June 12 issue of the St. Petersburg Times, "This capital city's recipe for success blends old-timey baseball, college hoops, Southern cooking, arts and music under a vast canopy of oaks -- and 'the Terror of the South.'"
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