Greater Raleigh Tourism e-News
Welcome to the second issue of Greater Raleigh Tourism e-News… presented by the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. This monthly e-News is the metamorphosis of two CVB communications tools (Visitor Advance and Matter of Fax). Please let us know about any news pertaining to Wake County's billion dollar visitor industry for possible inclusion in future issues.
IN VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2:
• New Convention Center/Hotel Update
• Raleigh Readies for March Madness
• CIAA Generates $11.5 Million in Visitor Spending
• RaleighNow! Web Site Honored with ADDY
• Spring Calendar Features More Than 100 Events
• Clay Aiken Fuels Visitor Spending
• CVB Hosts Belarus Tourism Officials
• Assisted CVB Bookings in February
• Sales/Sports News
• In the News
• On the Road
• Travel Trends
• Events in Greater Raleigh This Month
New Convention Center/Hotel Update
The construction of a new downtown convention center continues to move forward with the Raleigh City Council voting on March 2 to remain with its selection of Skanska USA Building Inc./Barnhill Contracting Company to serve as construction manager at risk for the project. In the coming months, officials will finalize a memorandum of understanding with hotel developer Stormont-Noble Development and agree upon conceptual plans for the new convention center being led by national architect Thompson Ventulett Stainback (TVS) and local architects Clearscapes/OBrien Atkins Associates. Convention center construction is expected to begin in January 2005 with completion in Spring 2007 with the hotel having a similar completion date.
The GRCVB and other Raleigh partners hosted last month's Meeting Professionals International Carolinas Chapter meeting with record-breaking attendance. The Sheraton Capital Center pulled out all the stops as the host hotel for the event, while other area sponsors included the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree. The Convention Center sponsored a reception for the 200-plus attendees at the BTI Center for the Performing Arts and provided an update about the new convention center for the many future potential users.
The new convention center complex will result in 900 additional new jobs and more than $50 million additional economic benefit annually for Wake County. Click here for more details.
Raleigh Readies for March Madness
"March Madness" returns to Raleigh on March 18 and 20 for the first time since 1982 with NCAA Men's Basketball first- and second-round games at the RBC Center. N.C. State is the official host. All games will be televised by CBS and the Raleigh field includes Duke, Alabama State, Seton Hall, Arizona, Wake Forest, Virginia Commonwealth, Florida and Manhattan.
The Bureau anticipates related visitor spending will be between $2 to $3 million and generate several thousand hotel room nights. The Raleigh Marriott Crabtree is the headquarters hotel, along with nine other official hotels, although it is expected that many area hotels will benefit from the many hoops fans coming to the area.
Like the 2002 NHL Playoffs and Stanley Cup Finals, Raleigh and the RBC Center will receive tremendous media exposure in the coming week. Six games with more than 12 hours of national television exposure on CBS highlight the area for millions more in potential future business. Plus, writers and broadcasters from across the country will be in Raleigh to cover the action.
The GRCVB and its bid partners representing N.C. State and the RBC Center have submitted a bid to be an NCAA tournament site in 2007 or 2008. A decision is expected this summer.
CIAA Tournament Generates $11.5 Million in Visitor Spending
Once again, despite some adverse winter weather, the recent CIAA Basketball Tournament provided a much-needed boost for the area economy as the overall impact rose 12.7 percent to $11.5 million -- up from $10.2 million in 2003.
The tournament continues to enjoy record-breaking success in Raleigh at the RBC Center with total turnstile attendance surging from 42,811 in Winston-Salem in 1999 to 54,730 in Raleigh in 2000 to 74,729 in 2001, 80,446 in 2002, 80,788 in 2003 and 90,855 in 2004 (a 112-percent increase over 1999). When complimentary tickets utilized for community initiatives, sponsor and school administrator passes and free youth group entries are accounted for, attendance for the CIAA week at the RBC Center topped 104,000 in 2004.
The economic impact for the area was $7.8 million in 2000, $8.8 million in 2001, $9.7 million in 2002 and $10.2 million in 2003. Equally important, the 2004 tournament generated more than $983,000 in tax revenue alone from only hotel, meal and sales taxes. The CIAA Tournament, which is the Triangle region's largest annual sporting event, also generated 25,887 total hotel room nights, a 24.1-percent increase from the previous year.
Besides this particular economic stimulus, having this tournament in Wake County exposes the Capital City area for many other potential sports championships, events and meetings with millions more in future spending. Raleigh will also host the tournament in 2005. These many successes will certainly be shared as the bid process begins this summer to host the 2006-2008 tournaments, with a decision by conference officials expected in the fall.
RaleighNow! Web Site Honored with ADDY
The RaleighNow! cultural entertainment resource received an ADDY Award at last month's Ad Club of the Triangle banquet in Cary. The web site (www.RaleighNow.com) picked up a bronze award for its design and functionality. Special kudos to Bureau webmaster Rusty Kroboth and Front Door Advertising for their exemplary efforts on this project so critical to the cooperative marketing efforts of Wake County's cultural community. For more information about RaleighNow! or becoming a promotional partner, contact the Bureau's director of tourism and partnership marketing Shawn Braden at 919-645-2663 or sbraden@visitraleigh.com.
Spring Calendar Features More Than 100 Events
Spring is in the air, and that means it's the ideal time to plan a fun-filled getaway to Greater Raleigh. And to make planning easier, the GRCVB has published its free 2004 Spring Calendar of Events and Special Offers—due to arrive in late March. The four-color piece features information on more than 100 festivals, cultural performances, special tours and sporting events taking place in April and May. It also includes special TGIF weekend offers by 29 participating Wake County hotel properties and other entertainment discounts. Forty-five thousand copies will be distributed in the coming weeks. Call 919-834-5900 for a free copy.
Clay Aiken Fuels Visitor Spending
On the heels of his March 1 concert at the RBC Center and recent Clay Convention in the Research Triangle Park, Clay Aiken continues to assist the area's billion dollar tourism industry via a friends and family campaign geared toward promoting visitation in his hometown area. The American Idol runner-up and American Music Award winner will send personalized invitations to people identified through www.VisitRaleigh.com/clay. To date, almost 3,000 letters have been sent.
Here is a recent testimonial:
Dear Raleigh native: I just wanted to tell you that a group of friends and I decided to take our vacation this year to Raleigh after hearing Clay Aiken rave about Raleigh so many times, and boy he doesn't lie. We had such a great time, and in fact met two other groups (one of friends, and the other a couple), who were also visiting Raleigh because of hearing Clay Aiken talk about it. I thought that was great, and I wanted to suggest that you use him as your spokesperson - however I see upon coming here he is! Thanks for the wonderful hospitality, food and great company that we kept while visiting, and Congratulations to Raleigh's son Clay for endorsing Raleigh as a great place to visit - we had a blast!
Lexy Spunk, (February 19, 2004)
CVB Hosts Belarus Tourism Officials
For the second time in three years, the Bureau worked with the local Visitor Industry Council to host European tourism officials. This year, 10 tourism industry representatives from Belarus learned how the American tourism industry caters its services to the client with a one-hour exchange about marketing North Carolina's Capital City area as a visitor destination.
Assisted Bookings in February
• Invensys Powerware, Throughout 2004 ($291,720 EEI)
• Carolina Fountain Pens Show, June 2004 ($237,960 EEI)
• AAU Hoops & Dreams Spring Showcase, March 2004 ($154,744 EEI)
• Sartox, LLC, November 2004 ($90,075 EEI)
• AAU Girls Basketball Regional, March 2004 ($76,000 EEI)
Sales/Sports News
The Sales Department hosted a site inspection in February for National Street Rod Association (July 2005; 1,000 attendees). The sports staffers have teamed with the Town of Cary Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources and an event rights-holder on a potential Baseball Players Association (BPA) Youth Tournament that would bring 100 teams to Cary and generate about 3,000 room nights in July 2004. The BPA is the baseball arm of the National Softball Association.
In The News
The Communications Department is assisting broadcast opportunities with Turner South's "3-Day Weekend" and the Food Network's "$40 A Day" that will tape this spring and should air later this fall. Meanwhile, a writer for the Boston Herald will be in Raleigh from April 2-4 and check out the opening of Exploris' blockbuster exhibition China On Tour: Visiting Masters of Ancient Innovation. Another journalist from AAA Car & Travel plans to visit later this spring.
On the Road in February
• Association of Convention Marketing Executives meeting in Washington
• IACVB Destinations Showcase in Washington
• IACVB Professional Development Institute in Orlando
• 2004 Travel Fairs at NC Military Bases: Fort Bragg, Camp LeJeune and Cherry Point
Travel Trends
According to The Denver Post, more restaurants are beginning to use tracking software to give rock-star treatment to customers. According to the paper, in some restaurants a computer database tells the restaurant manager a customer's birthday, his wife's birthday and their anniversary and lets employees know that the customer likes to eat at the counter at lunch and that he may have dined at the restaurant more than 100 times. The system works with the continual introduction of new data by staff.
Business executives are gingerly getting back to traveling after having reduced their trips the past couple of years. Yet they aren't letting go of penny-pinching habits formed during the recession now that the upturn has finally come. Many business travelers are using discount airlines like JetBlue. And instead of always booking a room at a full-service Marriott, they are just as likely to stay at Marriott's lower-priced Courtyard or Fairfield Inn. Some hotels that cater to business travelers are refurbishing to take advantage of the upturn.
U.S. hotel operators want to break the dependence on Web sites like Expedia and Travelocity that many developed during the three-year slump in travel. Expecting the rush to the Internet to increase, lodging companies are looking for ways to limit the appeal of such third-party sites and to improve their own offerings. Almost every major hotel brand now guarantees the best room prices on their own Web sites. They also have quit offering loyalty program bonuses for rooms booked through the independent Web sites. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers' analysis, the Internet generated an average of 26,000 incremental rooms occupied per night and annual incremental room revenue of $715 million in 2003. This incremental gain was offset by a $1.99 billion loss for the U.S. lodging industry as a result of the Internet's lower pricing effects. The net effect for the industry in 2003 will be a negative $1.27 billion.
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