Tourism Talk blog

A few weeks ago, we published in the Tourism Talk blog the first Tourism Talk microcast in which GRCVB's executive vice president Loren J. Gold described a piece of legislation that creates production tax incentives for groups wanting to plan esports events in Wake County and North Carolina....

Like it did with virtually everything else, the pandemic affected implementation of the 10-year Destination Strategic Plan (DSP) we launched in 2018. Some of the eight priorities in the DSP had to be shuffled in 2020, some received different levels of focus this fiscal year than originally expected,

We lost an all-timer last week, and as a result the Raleigh sports industry will never be quite the same. Davin “Dave” Olsen arrived in Raleigh, from Hartford, with the Carolina Hurricanes in the late ʼ90s. For the past 25 years or so he was the general manager of PNC Arena and,...

Why tourism matters. We talk about that a lot, but the relevance of tourism to the health and vitality of Raleigh and Wake County has never been more apparent since the pandemic began. We are teaming with Destinations International, the international association for destination management and our

New year, new channel. Today we're sharing the first "Tourism Talk: The Podcast," what we hope will be a regular part of the Tourism Talk lineup. In this inaugural edition, GRCVB executive vice president Loren J. Gold reports on North Carolina's recent esports tax incentive...

With 2021 winding down, here are 21 things in the Greater Raleigh sports tourism industry that I’m thankful for as we head into the holiday season: 1. Our GRSA staff. You won’t find a better or more hard-working group anywhere in America. That would be Tori Collins, Jason Philbeck,...

The Wake County Board of Commissioners allocated $2.67 million of their American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to the GRCVB in late summer 2021, which was included in our 2021-2022 fiscal-year budget and business plan. These funds brought our budget back to nearly pre-COVID levels and put us in a

Just up the road from our downtown Raleigh office, within a brick building surrounded by longleaf pine trees, the future leaders of the tourism industry are hard at work. Grounded in sustainable natural and cultural resource research, N.C. State’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management...

How about some good news about the recovery of tourism to start this Monday morning? According to Tourism Economics, U.S. leisure travel volume for 2021 will reach 91% of its prior volume in 2019. Looking ahead to 2022, they expect 94% recovery and full recovery by the first half of 2023. Wake

GRCVB’s 2020-2021 Annual Report has been released, and the online report includes summaries from each of the Bureau’s departments (Sales, Destination Services, Marketing and Communications, Public Relations and International Tourism, Sports Marketing, Administration and Marketing...