2011 Annual Meeting – RSVP by August 22
The 24th GRCVB Annual Meeting will be held Wednesday, August 31, at the Raleigh Convention Center. The meeting will include a ticketed luncheon, where the GRCVB will present its annual awards, as well as a free, morning strategy session, highlighting sustainable tourism and what it can do for area businesses. Attendees looking to attract more visitors/customers in the coming year may also participate in a morning meet-and-greet session with the GRCVB’s Communications, Marketing, Sales/Sports and Services departments. To reserve a seat for the morning session or to purchase tickets for the 24th GRCVB Annual Meeting, click here.

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Record Collections for Fiscal Year 2010-2011
Both hotel occupancy tax collections (paid solely by visitors) and prepared food and beverage tax collections (paid partially by visitors) had the highest fiscal years on record. The lodging tax collections for Wake County for June 2011 were up 23.4 percent over June 2010. Then with the June numbers in, Wake County ended the fiscal year (July 2010-June 2011) up 14.8 percent over fiscal year 2009-2010 and collected a total of $14,891,788—a new record. The prepared food and beverage tax collections for Wake County also set a fiscal-year record. June 2011 collections were up 5.2 percent over June 2010, and the fiscal year 2010-2011 collections were up 4.8 percent over 2009-2010, totaling $18,082,470—again a new record.

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‘Greater Raleigh Goes Dutch’
In advance of the North Carolina Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition Rembrandt in America, the Greater Raleigh CVB is launching the “Greater Raleigh Goes Dutch” marketing campaign. “Greater Raleigh Goes Dutch” is your opportunity to advertise cooperatively with GRCVB in front of just less than eight million potential Greater Raleigh leisure visitors. For information on how to participate in “Greater Raleigh Goes Dutch” (pay-to-play opportunities), please visit http://www.visitRaleigh.com/partners/partnership_opportunities/. To sign up, please contact tourism marketing manager Nolan Garner at ngarner@visitRaleigh.com right away. (Print advertising commitments in AirTran’s GO magazine, AAA Carolinas GO Magazine and Southern Living are due now.) We look forward to partnering with you to drive leisure visitation later this year!

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SPONSORED MESSAGE
The World’s Best Pro Gamers Descend on Raleigh

Do you like video games? Are you a fan of competition and technology? The Raleigh Convention Center is set to host the next Major League Gaming Pro Circuit Event on August 26-28. Come out and watch the best gamers from around the world compete in StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops for over $100,000 in prizes.

Join thousands of fans and cheer on your favorite players as you watch the action on three massive stages. While you’re not watching intense matches, there are an abundance of fun-filled activities and contests for spectators located throughout the venue. For more information on attending as a spectator and to get your pass, click here.
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New Official Visitors Guide Hits the Shelves
Thanks to support from more than 50 area partners, the new Official Visitors Guide to Raleigh, Cary and Wake County is hitting the shelves this month. This visually stunning magazine, full of photos and stories highlighting the unique, celebratory and unexpected aspects of Wake County, introduces readers to the seven “Destination I.D.s” that have been developed to match the interests of our most typical visitors. No matter if they are Foodies, Free Spirits, Fashionistas, Adrenaline Junkies, Lifelong Learners, Creative Geniuses or Music Maniacs, the guide’s in-depth stories and accompanying icons, which provide color-coded designations to the book’s sections, will showcase all there is to see and do according to visitors’ interests.

Additional features of the guide include updated, detailed listings throughout, a symbol beside attractions that have videos online at video.visitraleigh.com and deeper coverage for Apex, Cary, Garner, Holly Springs, Morrisville, Rolesville and Wake Forest—all of which partnered with GRCVB this year to expand the guide’s content.

The Official Visitors Guide is available to business and leisure travelers through Welcome Centers across North Carolina, RDU International Airport, most area attractions and hotels and the Greater Raleigh Visitor Information Center or by calling 919.834.5900. The digitized guide will also be available soon at www.raleighvisitorsguide.com and, of course, at visitRaleigh.com.

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Celebrate Services Day, August 25
GRCVB’s Services team invites Greater Raleigh convention and meeting services managers (CSMs), event managers (EMs) and related suppliers to join us for Celebrate Services Day. The event will be held on Thursday, August 25, at 4pm at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCNMS). “Celebrate Services Day” is a nationwide event orchestrated by the Association for Convention Operations Management (ACOM) and is intended to highlight the role CSMs and EMs have in ensuring the success of the events they manage. The Greater Raleigh event will include a brief program, refreshments and a “speed dating” style networking event to match up CSMs and EMs with other partners to develop new business relationships. Additionally all attendees will learn more about NCMNS and the soon-to-open Nature Research Center there. The program is open to all hotel and unique venue CSMs, EMs and the vendors who support them. For more information or to register to attend, please contact Julie Brakenbury, GRCVB director of services, at jbrakenbury@visitRaleigh.com.

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MPI World Education Congress
Kumi Anzalone, CMP, CASE, regional director of national accounts for the GRCVB, Malinda Pettaway, CMP, CASE, associate director of sales, and Loretta Yingling, CMP, national sales manager, attended Meeting Professionals International’s World Education Congress in Orlando, Florida. Mara Craft, national/international convention senior sales manager at the Raleigh Convention Center, also attended the event with the GRCVB representatives.

At the conference, Anzalone and Craft participated in the Hosted Buyer Program and met with 16 meeting planners to promote the Raleigh area. More than 2,200 people attended the four-day event.

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Poole’s Diner Chef Appears on Food Network’s ‘Iron Chef America’
Featuring an ever-changing menu that’s inspired by the season, Poole’s Diner is not only one of downtown Raleigh’s oldest restaurants but also it’s arguably one of the best. Poole’s Diner chef Ashley Christensen proved Poole’s is worth the praise when she received an invitation to appear on the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America,” where she chose to square off against celebrity chef Bobby Flay. Christensen, assisted by Poole’s sous chef Juan Esparza and Matthew Kelly, chef of Vin Rouge in Durham, proved a strong opponent to Iron Chef Flay in Kitchen Stadium, serving up delicious dishes that captured the nation’s attention.

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