Posts by Karen DeSollar | Tourism Talk Blog

Author: Karen DeSollar

Karen DeSollar is creative director at the Greater Raleigh CVB and has worked for over 15 years in the tourism sector. She started her career as an editor and earned a bachelor's degree in speech communications and English and a master's in journalism. She added graphic design to her bag of tricks when she spent 13 years as director of communications at a university in San Diego.

If Charles Dickens had been choosing the theme for this year’s GRCVB Annual Meeting, I have a feeling he would have gone with "A Tale of Two Cities,”—it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The Raleigh area's tourism story for 2019-2020 reads like a tale...

At last year's Annual Meeting in Aug. 2019, we announced that GRCVB would establish a series of tourism educational offerings called "Tourism U" for our partners and other interested stakeholders. Tourism U was designed to explain the cycle of tourism, specific to Wake County, as well...

About this time every year, we all take time to give thanks for everything that we have been given. And about this time around the CVB, we take a moment to be grateful for visitors. In case you're wondering why, we can think of at least these 703 reasons. Reason Number 1: If you are reading...

I consider myself something of an art aficionado. Before I moved to Raleigh in 2005, I worked on a college campus and was good friends with some of the art faculty there, and they taught me how to think more deeply about art. For example, sometimes a piece of art carries deep and nuanced meaning and

I’m sure you contend—in your work—with some of the same dilemmas that we do at GRCVB. There are many valuable ideas and projects that we could tackle, but the resources of time, people and funds are limited. So we, like you, have to prioritize—from among the options, we...

At GRCVB, there seems to be a cycle of buzzwords that we use in our meetings and hallway conversations. In the last year or two, I have heard master plan, disruption, deep dive and "move the needle" tossed around quite a bit. One phrase that has always been around but that we’re...

I’m taking the opportunity today to brag about a couple of my coworkers, specifically senior marketing manager Derek Allman, CHIA, and content marketing manager Michael Robson. I consider them to be Internet marketing wunderkinds, being in the early phases of their careers but having great...

The story of Raleigh, N.C., at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2019 is one of collaboration. We talk about Raleigh being “a city that prides itself on our collaborative spirit,” which I suspect many cities say about themselves, but not so many do. You might have seen tweets and Instagram...

When I was 17, my mother was not content to let me lollygag about without a job, so she went down to the local Tastee Freez in my little town and convinced the owner, Alan B., to give me a part-time, after-school position. (I remember a few things about Alan B. to this day. He did his bookkeeping

Tourism has a way of feeling secondary to other forms of economic development in a community, maybe because it represents a transient group of people or because some equate tourism with vacations, free sightseeing and off-hours entertainment. It tends to not carry the import that it deserves. But

« Previous Page Next Page »

Subscribe to New Posts

Tourism Talk blog

Author: Karen DeSollar

Annual Meeting 2020: A Tale of Two Cities

Tourism U Never More Relevant

700+ Reasons to be Thankful for Visitors in 2019

Originally Raleigh: Art

All Access Wake County: Accessibility Training for Hospitality Partners

Community Engagement and Partner Groups

GRCVB Internet Marketing Smashes Records

Raleigh, N.C., at South by Southwest 2019

Last Chance to Register for the Wake County Hospitality Job Fair

Why Tourism Matters

Search

Categories

Get our free Visitors Guide

Subscribe to our newsletter

Cookies in use

Author: Karen DeSollar

Search

Categories

Get our free Visitors Guide

Subscribe to our newsletter