Tourism Talk blog

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...

We are joining with the U.S. Travel Association this week to celebrate National Travel and Tourism Week (NTTW). You have heard us say this before, but Tourism Matters. And here's why... Why travel matters in Raleigh, N.C. We pass popular tourist sites like Marbles Kids Museum every day; we may...

We continue to make progress on Destination 2028 . Esports and event metrics Esports was a major opportunity under the Sports priority of the Destination Strategic Plan (DSP). I'm pleased to report that we have booked our first esports event, which will bring in more than 3,500 competitors and

We’re happy to announce that the 2019‒2020 edition of the Official Visitors Guide to Raleigh, Cary and Wake County has been provided to the printer. We expect the Visitors Guides to ship mid-May, and you should start seeing them by late May. Here are a few notes about this year's...

In past posts, we’ve covered visitor profile research and shared stats about Raleigh area visitors’ current makeup (studied biennially by GRCVB); we’ve also covered the economic significance of producing visitor-friendly festivals/events here and how economic impacts can be...

Last week, GRCVB marketing, sports marketing and public relations staff attended the statewide travel and tourism industry conference, Visit North Carolina 365 . Destination marketing organizations and others from across the state gather each year to network and hear the latest on Visit North

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...

You have heard and seen us talking about the second annual Wake County Hospitality Job Fair , which happened last Tues., March 5, 2019. Over 55 employers were on hand to talk with several hundred applicants about job opportunities at their businesses. We are sharing some photos from the Fair below,

In the first Tourism Talk post of 2019 , we outlined the three talking points GRCVB will be reiterating in much of our communication this year. The first of those and perhaps the most important is the Value of Tourism . We explained in detail why tourism matters to Wake County in the second post of

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