Meeting News - January 7, 2008 - (Page 36)

Destination Insider: North Carolina Event Report Winston-Salem’s Planning Guide Is a Workbook of Art, Golf, Etc. Meeting and event planners considering WinstonSalem as a venue have a new tool to get attendees out of the meeting room and into the community: a planning workbook, now available on the website of the Winston-Salem Convention & Visitors Bureau, www.visitwinstonsalem.com. Realizing that attendees have different interests and that they don’t want to run all over town during their limited time, the guide breaks the city into special interest areas and its various sections. Listings for each area include accommodations, unique meeting venues, attractions, and overﬂow hotels. Special interest areas include the galleries and nightlife of downtown, historic Old Salem, golf, and shopping. “This helps planners design their meetings with the attendee in mind,” said Stephan Dragisic, director of marketing and communications for Visit Winston-Salem. Religious Group Feels the Love in Greensboro An October conference sponsored by the Christian Church Foundation may have been small in numbers—there were just 25 participants—but the Greensboro Area Convention & Visitors Bureau did not treat the group as if it was a small matter. “The CVB gave my group the type of attention usually received only by much larger groups,” said Jim Cullumber, Christian Church Foundation’s VP of communications, who planned the event. “My CVB representative even stopped by during the conference to make sure things were going well.” Cullumber’s group stayed at the 1,000-room Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons, the Joseph S. Koury Convention Center’s headquarters hotel, due to its great location and competitive bid. “We were able to keep everything in the same building, yet the Four Seasons Towne Center Shopping Mall was just a few steps away,” he said. “And parking was free.” The conference, entitled “Understanding Black Philanthrophy,” was also a good ﬁt for Greensboro because of the destination’s rich African-American heritage, Cullumber noted. “It’s the site of the ﬁrst sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter, and home of the historic Palmer Memorial Institute [a school for African-American women],” said Gail Murphy, Greensboro CVB’s director of marketing and communications. “Also, we have several distinguished African-American institutions of higher learning.” The CVB stepped in again when Cullumber asked to bring attendees to a restaurant owned and operated by African Americans.“The bureau provided a list and then worked to make sure the restaurant took care of the necessary arrangements,” he said. This was Cullumber’s ﬁrst event held in Greensboro, but it won’t be his organization’s last. “Our church has already booked a large women’s conference for Greensboro in 2010,” he said. “I’m conﬁdent it will be a success.” 36 MeetingNews January 7, 2008 www.meetingnews.com http://www.visitwinstonsalem.com http://www.visitgreensboroNC.com http://www.meetingnews.com

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