Services (2017-2018 Annual Report)


Servicing successes

Serviced and hosted 623 groups (meetings, conventions and sports). We achieved a 55.29-percent survey response rate with an overall scoring of 4.53 on a 5.0 scale, plus hosted 11,661 visitors in the official Visitor Information Center while fulfilling 11,523 visitor requests.
 

Visitors guide and map delivery service

Verified that the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau's (CVB's) on-demand service remains popular for the delivery of the Official Visitors Guide to Raleigh, Cary and Wake County—529 partners received an impressive total of 59,372 guides at their businesses.
 

Celebrate Services Day wins national recognition

The Greater Raleigh CVB’s convention services and sports services teams annually participate in National Celebrate Services Week, a program of the Event Services Professionals Association (ESPA), by hosting activations and events to celebrate local organizations and businesses that provide services to visitors and meeting planners. Each year, ESPA awards one city with the most creative or unique event, and our event was chosen as a winner in 2017. Our event included not only the service aspect of the theme by visiting local police and fire departments and other first responders around the Raleigh area (where we helped stock their break rooms with treats), but we also hosted area CSMs for a breakfast event to celebrate their important role in hosting meetings, conventions and sports events in Raleigh, N.C.
 

See for Yourself (SFY) Tours are a great hit (again)

A fundamental part of services trainings for local hospitality partners since 2013, SFY Tours are respected and well-received educational programs that the CVB’s Convention Services Department has provided quarterly each fiscal year. The main focus of these Wake County-based, themed motor coach tours is to reach front-line staff of our area’s attractions and venues, restaurants and hotels that have a responsibility of suggesting and recommending things to see and do to visitors. This year, we successfully completed four SFY Tours, including "Small Towns, Big Surprises" (a Wake Forest, Rolesville, Apex and Holly Springs tour), "Fantastic Venues of Western Wake" and "Fabulous Foods for Fall," altogether welcoming a total of 84 attendees.
 

Visitor Information Center (VIC) program successes

Our VIC has a primary mission of welcoming visitors and responding to visitor inquiries. Our 2017-2018 program successes included participation in the May 2018 National Travel and Tourism Week Event at the I-85 N. N.C. Welcome Center in Norlina and presenting programming at area schools, universities and service organizations throughout the year.
 

Bluegrass Banjo and International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) World of Bluegrass (WOB) visitors

A hallmark of Raleigh’s annual IBMA WOB week includes the large, iconic Bluegrass Banjo at our VIC. For 2017’s WOB, we hosted a “JAM HERE” location in our VIC, which attracted musicians at all hours, enabled a unique photo opp location and provided extended visitor hours to enhance the experience of bluegrass attendees.
 

Tourism Ambassadors program

We planned and executed the 2018 “We Love Our Tourism Ambassadors” ambassador appreciation event as a customized SFY Tour featuring new places around Raleigh (The StateView Hotel, Union Station, Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Imurj and more), designed to train and inspire our ambassadors who service arriving visitors.
 

Certified Guest Service Professionals® (CGSPs®)

Three Guest Service Gold® customer service training classes resulted in 49 hospitality staff receiving their CGSP® certification.
 

Universal Access Day for the Arts

The Greater Raleigh CVB was a sponsor for City of Raleigh’s annual Universal Access Day for the Arts, which featured accessibility training that impacted numerous performing arts organizations and cultural arts venues.