| Weekly e-newsletter for VisitNC partners | February 15, 2017 |
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| IN THIS ISSUE:
* Visit NC PR team helps AJC shape NC travel coverage * Pigs, Pints and Pirates: Visit NC 365's opening reception, Greenville-style
* TRAC in Dunn/Harnett County region tomorrow
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 Visit NC PR team helps Atlanta Journal-Constitution shape NC travel coverage
Restaurants, attractions and historic sites across North Carolina were featured in a multi-part roundup published in Sunday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The writer contacted the Visit NC public relations team for information and photos showcasing rising chefs, engaging history, family attractions and places to discover. A substantial number of Visit NC's recommendations were included in the package. Under the headline "Whatever you're hungry for, it's somewhere in North Carolina," Mary's Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem, PinPoint in Wilmington, Smoky Park Supper Club in Asheville, Vidrio in Raleigh, Never Blue in Hendersonville and the Durham Hotel restaurant were featured. "Hike the woods and see the universe, ride the rails or shop and play" showcased Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, Great Smoky Mountains Railroad and Concord Mills. Judaculla Rock, Reed Gold Mine State Historic Site and the Corolla wild horses shared "Natives, gold miners left their marks, and mustangs still run free." History returned in "Learn of a famous banjo picker, bearded pirate or battlewagon," featuring the Earl Scruggs Center, NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort and the Battleship North Carolina. "Soak on the sand, soar in the sky or cast a fly" took in Jockey's Ridge State Park, the Western North Carolina Fly Fishing Trail and Ocean Isle Beach. The AJC's Sunday circulation at 287,346, while ajc.com has 8 million unique monthly visitors. |
 | | | The opening reception at the 2014 conference in Charlotte |
Pigs, Pints and Pirates: Visit NC 365's opening reception, Greenville-style
Visit NC 365's opening reception, sponsored by Visit Greenville, is the most impressive showcase of Greenville's pit masters, local brewers and school spirit. Join us Sunday at 6:30 pm for the most epic tailgate in town. We'll throw a game or two on the big screen, so be sure to wear your favorite jersey and join us as we kick-off the conference Greenville-style. Visit Greenville is bringing a showcase of local beer, wine and spirits, and there will be a cash-bar for anyone with specific tastes. Breweries include The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery, Trollingwood Taproom & Brewery and Uptown Brewing Company. Wine will be served, in tasting glasses, from Seven Pines Vineyard & Winery, along with a special Pirate Punch. Don't forget to grab your pint glass as you enter the event, take a photo with Steve the Pirate and tag #VisitNC365 for all your fans. The annual Visit NC 365 conference is the state's premier travel industry event, bringing together more than 500 of the state's tourism industry leaders. This three-day educational conference is one you won't want to miss. Online conference registration is available with a rate of $499 through March 1 to avoid late fee charges. Directly book hotel reservations online or call the Holiday Inn Greenville at (877) 271-2616 and ask for the Visit NC 365 conference group block for the group rate of $129/night + tax. Prospective conference sponsors should contact Heidi Walters at (919) 447-7762 to learn more about sponsorship opportunities. |
| | | A previous TRAC in New Bern | |
TRAC in Dunn/Harnett County region tomorrow
Tomorrow (Thursday), tourism-related businesses in the Dunn/Harnett County region - including the surrounding counties - will have an opportunity to work with Visit North Carolina staff to learn about its research, development and marketing services, and discuss best practices in reaching travelers, the media and increasing tourism visitation and spending. Visit North Carolina's Tourism Resource Assistance Center (TRAC), a community-based training program designed to help small tourism-related businesses, will be held 10 am - 2 pm at the Dunn Center (Historic Harnett Rosenwald School) at 660 East Johnson St. in Dunn. The Dunn session is being held in partnership with the Central Carolina Community College Hospitality Program. There is no charge to attend, no reservation is required, and there are no PowerPoint presentations. This is a come-when-you-can/stay-as-long-as-you'd-like event opportunity for all tourism-related businesses to meet one-on-one with program managers to discuss better ways to promote their property or event. TRAC brings Visit North Carolina's program managers to local communities to discuss the nuts and bolts of working with the organization. This invaluable program is designed to help tourism-related businesses engage more fully with programs offered by Visit North Carolina and its partners.
Representatives from the EDPNC's BLNC, N.C. Dept. of Commerce, N.C. Dept. of Natural & Cultural Resources and NC GreenTravel will also be on hand to discuss services they can provide businesses, including strategic planning, assisting with identifying funding sources and serving as liaisons with other local, state and federal agencies. For additional information on this session or to learn more about scheduling a TRAC visit to your community, contact André Nabors at (919) 447-7771. |
 RetireNC sees strong interest at Greenwich show
Visit NC's André Nabors, along with Reidsville TDA and New Bern CVB, promoted North Carolina as a retirement destination at the Ideal Living Resort & Retirement Expo in Greenwich, Conn., this past weekend. The Expo drew approximately 500 potential retirees from the region who were interested in exploring opportunities and conversing with exhibitors from across the Southeast. Attendees talked with experts from towns and community developers to gain insights and get answers to help plan, design and enjoy their retirement. North Carolina has consistently been one of the most requested states by the attendees. Visit North Carolina attended the Expo to continue its efforts to promote the N.C. Certified Retirement Community Program, which consists of Asheboro, Eden, Edenton, Jamestown/High Point, Laurinburg, Lenoir, Lumberton, Marion, Mount Airy, New Bern, Pittsboro, Reidsville, Sanford, Tarboro and Winterville. For more information about the Certified Retirement Community Program or Visit North Carolina's marketing initiatives for retirement relocation, contact André Nabors at (919) 447-7771. |
| | | During the ribbon-cutting opening on Friday, Visit NC's booth was the first travel destination |
Visit NC offers information at Boston travel show
This past weekend, Visit NC attended the Boston Globe Travel Show in Boston. This year's show expected an attendance of 23,000. Consumer travel shows offer additional opportunities for Visit NC - and its interested partners - to promote travel to North Carolina to potential visitors who are actively looking for travel suggestions and information. |
 Success of VisitNC traveler quiz leads to 'romance'
In January, VisitNC.com launched a digital quiz themed "Find Yourself in North Carolina," where the audience is asked fun questions to help determine their travel personality. So far, nearly 13,000 people have completed the quiz so far, garnering approximately 2,400 opt-ins to receive future emails from Visit NC. With a large segment of quiz-takers identified as romantic travelers, the VisitNC team launched the "Find Your Most Romantic North Carolina" quiz, serving users with romantic-focused stories and trip ideas on VisitNC.com, based on questions they answered such as the region they would like to visit (mountains, city or beach). These strategic quizzes provide insights that enable the team to develop more great content around the audience's interests, and prominently features North Carolina destinations and attractions. Promotion of the new quiz includes a targeted email sent to e-news subscribers identified as romantic travelers from the first quiz, resulting in a 44 percent open rate and 23 percent click rate for the email. The quiz is also being promoted on social via paid and organic posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Since launching this past Friday, paid ads have driven more than 3,000 link clicks to the romance quiz. Of the social users who opted to take the quiz, 91 percent completed it in its entirety. |
 Winners of "Filmed in NC" grants announced
The winners of its "Filmed in NC" filmmaker grants have been announced. The grants, which total $10,000, are funded by the N.C. Film Office and awarded through the Cucalorus Film Foundation. They go to support North Carolina filmmakers working on projects that include everything from narrative features to documentary shorts.The 11 winners were chosen from 59 applicants by a panel of judges that included grant recipients from 2016, members of the Filmed in NC office and members of the film industry. The winners were selected with an eye toward diversity, with grants going to five female filmmakers, three African-American filmmakers and one LGBTQ filmmaker. Portions of the films funded by the grants will be screened at the 23rd Cucalorus Film Festival, Nov. 8-12. |
 RDU gets new flights from New Orleans, Nashville
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 Vote for N.C.-related entities for 'Readers' Choice Craft Beer Awards'
North Carolina has a town, brewery and festival among the nominations for 10Best's "Readers' Choice Craft Beer Awards." Online voting by readers is now open via USAToday.com's website. Click on the hyperlink to vote. Voting ends March 13 at noon.
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Surveys, Industry, Marketing & Travel Trends Hoteliers comb the ranks of tech workers to gain an edge - The front desk manager or housekeeper may epitomize the hotel employee, but the hospitality industry is increasingly dependent on tech workers, vacuuming data scientists, web designers and other experts into its ranks, reports The New York Times. More than ever, guests look to their phones and computers to research, book, stay in and communicate with hotels. That translates to critical technology needs in information security, mobile development and systems integration. Inside hotel operations, data analysis can help find new customers, make a dining room more profitable or provide information to executives making business decisions. A representative with the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell says she is seeing more companies coming on campus to hire students who are specializing in areas like digital marketing and business analytics. "They want foodies who code," she said. There are also technical job openings at the hotel level, where employees at individual properties manage social media, on-site Wi-Fi and the integration of systems like retail, parking and food sales. One project for Hilton tech employees is keyless entry, which allows guests to use their phones instead of plastic key cards to unlock room doors. How big data analytics help hotels gain customers' loyalty - To attract visitors and to encourage guests to return, hotels have come up with many unique amenities over the years, reports TechRepublic. But until recently, many of these hotel amenities were determined by "gut feel" and manual surveys of customers in which guests were asked which free amenities they enjoyed most. Now, thanks to analytics, the task of determining the right amenities for a hotel to offer has become more scientific. A representative with Absolutdata, which provides marketing and customer analytics to hotesl, says that from the research and analytics it's applied to many types of hotels, free Wi-Fi nearly always ranks towards the top of what guests expect to find at any hotel. Next in the rankings is free bottled water, or at least an introductory free bottle of water. "Often, determining what types of free amenities you offer depends on your brand and the type of hotel that you are," the representative said, "Because the impact of the amenity is going to differ between a luxury hotel and a hotel that is more economy-oriented." Analytics helps hotels with ROI that is attributable to free amenities. |
Going beyond the green headlines
Last year, The Huffington Post published "5 Best Green Hotels in America." While it is always interesting to learn about new innovative sustainable practices being implemented, unfortunately, many of the sustainable practices mentioned in such articles are difficult to replicate. While not every hotel can have a garden on its roof or generate its own electricity, there are many sustainable practices that every hotel, restaurant or attraction can implement that lead to everyday savings. For example, replacing older exit signs with LED exit signsis an easy way to be more energy efficient that also helps reduce utility costs. Developing policies that take into account Energy Staroptions when any new equipment is purchased ensures that efforts to save energy are maintained at all levels of an organization. And while setting office equipment to sleep mode when not in use probably will not get a property mentioned in a national magazine article, it will help save energy every day. For more examples of everyday, implementable sustainable practices, download any of the Sustainable Travel Resources from the NC GreenTravel Initiative. For more information about sustainable practices in the tourism industry or for assistance with being greener, contact NC GreenTravel Manager Tom Rhodes at (919) 707-8140, or ECU Center for Sustainability Partnership Coordinator Kamara Jones at (252) 737-4312. |
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| | On North Carolina Weekend for the week of Feb. 16, take a tour of the Umstead Hotel's art and then experience the hotel's afternoon tea. Enjoy the great outdoors at Elk Knob State Park in Todd. Explore the Museum of the Bizarre in Wilmington. Get an adrenaline rush at Kinetic Heights in Charlotte. And tempt your taste buds at Quanto Basta Italian Eatery in Winston-Salem. (Please note: listings are subject to change.) North Carolina Weekend is underwritten by Visit North Carolina. In addition, UNC-TV has made recent editions of North Carolina Weekendavailable online. | In terms of market share of international visitors to North Carolina, Canada is the top market with nearly 40 percent of market share and 27 percent of spending. The top overseas market is the U.K. with nearly 8 percent of market share and spending. Germany (market share 6.2 percent, spending 5.8 percent) and China (market share 4.4 percent, spending 9.3 percent) are the next top markets. Other top countries in terms of volume are India, Mexico, Japan, France, Ireland and Italy. For more North Carolina visitor profile information, visit Visitor Profile Studies or contact Tourism Research Director Marlise Taylor at (919) 447-7748.
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Upcoming Industry Meetings & Events
Feb. 16 - Visit NC TRAC, Dunn Feb. 21 - NCTIA Legislative Tourism Day Reception, Raleigh March 9 - Visit NC TRAC, Uwharrie region (TBD) March 10-19 - South by Southwest Conference and Festivals, Austin, Texas March 12-15 - Travel South Showcase, Branson, Mo. March 14 - NC Sports Assn. Meeting, Charlotte March 16-17 - MPI-CC Meeting, Myrtle Beach, S.C. March 24-26 - Mountain-to-Sea Trail Annual Meeting, Elkin March 27-30 - NASC Sports Event Symposium, Sacramento, Calif. April 6 - MPI-CC Global Meetings Industry Day, Charlotte, Raleigh & Myrtle Beach April 6 - NC Coast Host Quarterly Meeting, Elizabethtown April 20 - Visit NC TRAC, Marion |
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