Tourism Talk blog

GRCVB and the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association (NCRLA) hosted a virtual meeting on Thurs., March 18, 2021, to share the latest developments related to Wake County's hospitality sector and NCRLA's plan for tourism rebuild/recovery advocacy. This is the first of two reports...

Sports was hit especially hard by the pandemic. And sports will lead our recovery here in Wake County. Those statements provide a good summary about the importance of the sports event industry to our local economy. Looking back, the local sports industry was basically crushed by the onset of the

The Greater Raleigh Esports Local Organizing Committee (GRELOC) is a diverse group of civic, sports and business leaders who support the growth of esports and gaming activities here. The group, which aligns to one market segment being pursued by the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance (GRCVB's...

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...

Each year since revamping its community engagement strategies officially in 2018, GRCVB has arranged its communications with local community stakeholders around annual themes of import, and this year is no different. In calendar years 2019 and 2020, Bureau staff created and implemented a multilevel

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...

One of the important responsibilities that GRCVB bears for Wake County is the collection and constant monitoring of tourism-related statistics. As you can imagine during the past year, we have seen some jubilant highs and jarring lows as tourism numbers, across the board, have been reported. As is

Everywhere we go these days, someone is taking our temperature. So this week, we are "taking the temperature" of GRCVB and of tourism in Wake County. We asked Dennis Edwards for his honest appraisal of the current pandemic situation from his role as president and CEO, its impact on the...

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