Tourism Talk blog

The year 2020 was an extremely challenging and difficult time for the leisure and hospitality industry. However, as vaccines continue to be developed and distributed, we believe consumer confidence regarding travel once again will begin to rebound. There are indicators that Wake County tourism will

We believe there are some people in our area whom every hospitality partner ought to know (or at least know about). And we're planning to introduce you to them in a series of Q&A interviews during 2021. The first is Eric Dorfman, Ph.D., director and CEO of the North Carolina Museum of...

In the last Tourism Talk blog post of 2020, we asked the GRCVB staff to reflect on 2020 and share the lessons they have learned, especially as related to tourism and the work we all do. You can read their responses here. Now in this first blog post of 2021, we asked them an opposite question and we

Do you remember that old Mac Davis song "Happiness is (an unnamed Texas city) in the Rearview Mirror"? We're going to paraphrase it to "Happiness is 2020 in the Rearview Mirror." With the end of this unexpected and unprecedented year in front of us and vaccines loaded onto...

About this time every year (at least for the last three years), we have published a “Reasons to be Thankful for Visitors” Tourism Talk blog. (It is the season, after all.) In 2019, we noted 700+ reasons to be grateful for visitors and what they bring to Wake County. Within that number...

We have been reporting on GRCVB's launch of a comprehensive marketing campaign supporting area tourism's rebuild and recovery, themed “Wish You Were Here” (WYWH), in Aug. 2020. Through WYWH messaging, we are doing our best to persuade potential visitors (individual families...

As announced in the GRCVB Annual Meeting on Aug. 26 and further outlined in our Sept. 30 Coronavirus Briefing, the Bureau is currently investing in two major photo/video projects around Wake County, to respond to special needs being felt by the destination’s customers as well as by our area...

GRCVB, just like many organizations throughout Wake County, has learned to evolve and discover how best to sustain its core mission in the ever-changing landscape of 2020. Many plans disrupted this year required fresh creativity and a willingness to pivot to make them work. That went doubly so for

Last week you heard from the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance on how that team at GRCVB has been working hard during the COVID crisis. This week you are hearing from the Marketing and Communications Department and its director, Jonathan Freeze, CDME. On March 23, 2020, we officially activated the

GRCVB’s Annual Meeting went virtual this year on Wed., Aug. 26, 2020. A full recording of the live presentation is available here along with a copy of the accompanying PowerPoint presentation. We’re including a few of the highlights in this blog post, although there is much more...