Meeting News - July 7, 2008 - (Page 15)

Edited by Rayna Katz rayna.katz@nielsen.com CVBs microsites) focusing on a particular destination feature or topic of interest. The Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau, because of the city’s great Latino influence, even has created an all-Spanish site, at www.visitahoustontexas.com. Often, the website efforts are part of bureau rebranding campaigns. The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, for example, has created a food and wine microsite, www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/taste, to tout the city’s renowned culinary offerings. TasteSF resides within the SFCVB’s redone site, themed in conjunction with the Only in San Francisco brand strategy. “The Bay Area is renowned as a dining destination,” according to Joe D’Alessandro, SFCVB’s president and CEO, when asked why the microsite was started, in late April. TasteSF’s homepage proffers: “Everything you need to know about what’s happening in San Francisco’s food scene is right here.” Meeting planners and attendees alike can search dining establishments by such unorthodox criteria as “inspiring views,”“dining adventures,”“award winners,” and “taste of history.” More conventional are searches by neighborhood, cuisine, and price. Site visitors also can view upcoming tasting events, learn more about their favorite chefs in the profiles section, see what fans have to say in the Foodie 411 blog, and enter contests. In Las Vegas, the Convention & Visitors Authority’s Vegas Right Now microsite presents information on what’s going on within the next 30 days. “Vegas Right Now” is the city’s current slogan, and although the site is geared toward the leisure travel market—with entertainment listtings and special offers on lodging— promotions for groups are planned. “My advice to small meeting planners is absolutely go to our site and check out Vegas Right Now,” said Chris Meyer, the CVA’s convention sales VP. “The resorts are giving added-value perks to not just leisure guests but meeting attendees too.” The Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau’s BusinessAloha microsite already targets planners and attendees, with destination facts ready. Links further connect visitors to the site of the Hawaii Convention Center, as well as MeetHawaii.com, the CVB’s meetings and conventions site. But a notable resource on the site is the Hawaii Speakers Bureau, which features profiles of indigenous executives and destination experts available to speak at meetings. Speakers are categorized by teambuilding, medical/biotechnology, and business/finance, among others. The St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & the Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau in late May relaunched its site for meeting planners, www.myfloridameetings.com. It now has corporate social responsibility resources, listing nonprofit organizations,“giving back” opportunities, and regional members of Florida’s Green Lodging program. Other CVBs will create customized microsites for meetings and events. The co-branding tactic lets planners send content and messages to attendees. Bureaus that customize now include Long Beach, CA, and Louisville, KY; both can create interactive maps, showing only the hotels, restaurants, and other locations for meeting delegates.r —Section written by William Ng July 7, 2008 MeetingNews 15 Destinations Are Fighting to the Finish Online CVBs nationwide boost their web presence and create innovative pages to lure groups New York—In today’s highly competitive tourism industry, one of the battlegrounds on which convention and visitors bureaus are waging their battles to win meetings and leisure visitors is the web. Realizing that the Internet is one of the first places tech-savvy meeting planners go for destination research, countless CVBs recently have updated or even completely overhauled their websites to give planners efficient and information-rich visits. While Chapel Hill, NC (www. visitchapelhill.org) and Frisco, TX (www.visitfrisco.com) are just two of the latest bureaus to roll out redesigned websites, major tourism players like Las Vegas and San Francisco have gone a web step further by debuting micro-websites (or Atlanta Works to Recruit More Short-Term Bookings Atlanta—As a sign of how the deepening economic slump has impacted the meetings industry, stalwart destinations like Las Vegas and Orlando have seen declines in group business this year (see May 19 MN cover story and June 16 MN, p. 28). Major destinations like Atlanta, too, have seen a softened short-term meetings market. The Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau recently staged a two-day sales blitz at the Georgia World Congress Center involving sales representatives from the city’s meeting hotels and targeting the corporate meetings market. “The big conventions side of the business is moving right along, but short-term corporate activity has softened, and that will continue this year,” Mark Vaughan, the ACVB’s executive VP acknowledged.“Where we are short is groups of less than 1,000 attendees. We are targeting corporate planners with opportunities in the next 18 months.” Set up with 20 phones in a GWCC office, city and hotel reps conducted the calls over two (morning and afternoon) shifts across two days. They updated potential clients on development around town—including the massive $138-million “reinvention” of the Atlanta Marriott Marquis—the New World of CocaCola, and the Georgia Aquarium. “We made over 3,000 calls at the Congress Center and got 600 requests for more information, as well as 11 leads, which was 11 more than what we had,” said Vaughan. “We also called some customers, thanking them for their business.” Vaughan said the ACVB will have additional marketing efforts, including hosted familiarization programs for potential meeting buyers from overseas, and a late-July fam for travel media. “International traffic is growing at trade shows here, and Delta’s expanding international airlift,” he said. “We’ll also be attending more international industry shows.” ACVB exec calls for business. www.meetingnews.com http://www.visitahoustontexas.com http://www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/taste http://www.visitchapelhill.org http://www.visitchapelhill.org http://www.visitfrisco.com http://www.myfloridameetings.com http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - July 7, 2008

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