Tourism Talk blog

Last year I wrote about the philosophy behind developing festival/event tourism in our area and plugging data into a cycle of improvement that leads to more positive impacts from these events. This week I want to be more specific about how GRCVB can help area festival/event organizers who are

Quarterly report released GRCVB released its 2019 third-quarter industry report, and all indicators confirm that tourism is doing extremely well in Wake County. Hotel occupancy in the county is up 6.3%, running at 74.6% through Sept. year-to-date (YTD). Lodging tax collections are up 11.3% and

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...

In case you missed it, here's the press release that was distributed last week regarding the economic impact from 2019 World of Bluegrass. .......... New Free Model a Success for IBMA’s Wide Open Bluegrass Festival Biggest week in Bluegrass sees increase in overnight visitation and...

If you're reading this Tourism Talk blog post, you most likely received it through our Tourism Talk E-newsletter, which goes out to partners throughout Wake County each Mon. morning. And if you've been a partner with GRCVB for long, you've probably received an invitation to one of our...

I am pleased to inform you that the Wake County Board of Commissioners and the Raleigh City Council approved the following last week related to Interlocal Fund distributions: 1. A stadium feasibility study JLL (the same organization which conducted GRCVB's Destination Strategic Plan project...

Once a year or so, I overhear someone say that the Raleigh area doesn't have a brand. Having been project manager for development of the Raleigh, N.C., Destination Brand Strategy in 2014-2015, however, I know that we have at least one brand platform countywide! The problem is that we...

The 2019 GRCVB Annual Meeting, “Why Tourism Matters,” is in the books. Here are some scenes from our favorite day of the year. The theme What we hoped our guests would take away from this event was summarized in the theme—Why Tourism Matters—specifically how visitors and...

GRCVB released 2018 tourism numbers last week with some impressive results. Wake County welcomed 16.8 million visitors in 2018, an increase of 4.8% over 2017. These visitors who traveled to Wake County spent $2.7 billion, an increase of 7.2% over 2017. Both the numbers of visitors and visitor

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...