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...

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...

Because of the 2019 Annual Meeting and previous Tourism Talk blog posts, you may already know that one of the key talking points for GRCVB this year is the value of tourism. Why does tourism matter and what difference does it make in the local economy, to the vibrancy of our area and to each of us

After 11 months of a comprehensive and transparent process, the Wake County Board of Commissioners and the Raleigh City Council approved future distribution of the Interlocal Fund, which is a combination of the county’s lodging and prepared food and beverage tax revenues. The approved...

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

The Wake County Destination Strategic Plan (DSP) is garnering international attention. The Destinations International Annual Convention is happening this week in St. Louis, where over 1,400 representatives from convention and visitors bureaus from around the world will be attending. I have been

Hospitality tax stakeholders City and County leaders hosted a hospitality tax stakeholders meeting at Marbles Kids Museum on June 19. I would like to congratulate the County Manager and Raleigh City Manager and their staffs on developing the proposal and for the transparency of the process. I