NORTHEAST
Photo Credit: Destination DC
The official marketing organization for the U.S. capital city, Destination DC is a dedicated to nurturing the next generation of hospitality professionals. Through its affiliated nonprofit American Experience Foundation, DDC invests in local youth by supporting career and college readiness, offering internships, work-based learning opportunities and scholarships to local students
In addition to its youth-focused initiatives, DDC prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion within the hospitality industry. The bureau helped launch the DEI Business Fellowship to support small businesses in the local travel and tourism industry owned by individuals from underrepresented communities, including people of color, LGBTQ+, veterans, women, disabled persons and their allies. Indeed, DDC is not only a premier travel destination, but also a community that nurtures and uplifts its residents.
Representing all meeting and sports facilities and convention-service businesses across the state, the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau is a vital partner for meeting professionals from around the world. The bureau attends myriad hospitality-industry shows as part of its extensive outreach efforts and conducts FAM tours and strategic road trips to new and renovated meeting spaces and hotels, including attractions that double as unique off-site venues.
With a vast selection of knowledge and professional staff at the ready, the team at Visit Atlantic City knows how best to take advantage of the city’s 48 blocks of food, historic attractions, shopping, pristine beaches and the world-famous Boardwalk, not to mention meeting facilities like the nearly 1 million-square-foot Atlantic City Convention Center. Throughout, the bureau provides a seamless planning experience, helping attendees to build meaningful connections and achieve company goals.
SOUTHEAST
Photo Credit: Discover the Palm Beaches
Renowned as a premier warm-weather getaway by travelers for over 125 years, the Palm Beaches in Florida have a dynamic CVB to represent the best the region has to offer. When it comes to meetings and events, the team extends a professional, warm and welcoming hand. For example, at this year’s three-day Eudēmonia summit, dedicated to health and longevity, the bureau will help host over 200 talks, lectures, workshops, classes, workouts and wellness treatments from area leaders in the wellness industry.
To better realize its mission, Discover the Palm Beaches partners with organizations like 4ocean, known for its global efforts to clean the oceans, to provide attendees with opportunities to participate in beach cleanups, fostering a sense of environmental stewardship and responsibility. The Lord’s Place, a local nonprofit dedicated to breaking the cycle of homelessness, offers another avenue for attendees to give back via special participatory programs.
Meeting professionals have long relied on Visit Tampa Bay to help them create programs rich in education, team building and the sheer joy of convening in the heart of Florida’s Gulf Coast. The bureau’s aggressive investment in state-of-the-art event technology and commitment to creating memorable, impactful events through innovation, community engagement and inclusivity have earned the respect of the industry — and the gratitude of clients.
Groups seeking to gather in Charlotte, N.C., turn to Visit Charlotte and the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority for a seamless experience with venue sales, event and convention center management, attendance building and destination support, all generated by one integrated team. Indeed, the “One CRVA” model benefits prospects and clients by reducing the number of touchpoints needed from the RFP through execution of the event, leading to a positive attendee experience.
Whether the need is to find theme-park events, live sports, festivals, concerts, cultural celebrations, outdoor fun, consumer trade shows, hotel rooms, conference space or any of the myriad other elements that make Orlando one of the most-visited destinations in the world, Visit Orlando is there to help. The bureau also can help guide groups into the 2.1 million square feet of exhibit space and 471,119 square feet of meeting space in the Orange County Convention Center.
An ongoing effort to fostering long-running partnerships and delivering exceptional customer service has helped the ATL Airport District to generate substantial economic development for the cities of College Park, Hapeville, and Union City, Ga. The key for the bureau is fostering an easily accessible and culturally vibrant destination for business and leisure travelers, leading to the annual return of numerous conventions and other gatherings, including the World Natural Hair, Health & Beauty Show, the Spin the District cycling event and more.
To get an idea of the ways the team at North Carolina’s Visit Raleigh helps implement memorable events, note last year’s Meeting Professionals Summit, held at the Umstead Hotel and Spa. The bureau assisted the group in developing interactive sessions, obtain notable local speakers, ensure that attendees with dietary restrictions were well served, create clear presentations that were easy to see and comprehend, and even display agendas on the back of name tags for easy reference.
MIDWEST
Photo Credit: Experience Grand Rapids
The voice of the meeting professional reigns supreme for Experience Grand Rapids in Michigan. The team here customizes convention-site experiences based on advance personal contact with planners, ensuring that every moment of attendees’ time in the city is relevant and useful. Feedback from site-experience guests helps the bureau reshape its FAM tours along similar lines, as well as to help train hotel and venue partners to provide better tours at their sites.
At the other end of the agenda, post-convention surveys collecting both quantitative and qualitative data are analyzed to help EGR fine-tune its services, and the bureau again shares the results with hotel and convention center partners to guide their improvements. This close attention to client communications makes all the difference when it comes to creating successful events.
In Iowa in 2023, meetings and conventions generated more than $164.8 million in economic impact to local communities, a development largely made possible by the hard-working team at Catch Des Moines. At the same time, the bureau helped position Greater Des Moines as a sports mecca thanks to events like the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and the AAU Junior Olympic Games. The team likes to roll out the red carpet for everyone, and a new landing page on the website serves as a resource for diverse — as in inclusive — visitors and locals alike.
Representing eight colorful communities just outside of the Windy City (including Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village and Itasca, Ill.), Meet Chicago Northwest helps planners discover hidden gems, from shops and culture to fully equipped meeting and event spaces, while keeping its commitment to sustainability and customer service. The team also offers clients a customized group landing page that includes interactive maps with restaurant recommendations and 360-degree tours of meeting sites.
Milwaukee is not only rich in culture and history but also a growing hub for corporate events, driven by venues like the newly opened Baird Center. Visit Milwaukee knows the terrain well and helps direct meeting planners to best take advantage of this central Midwest location, event-friendly infrastructure and charm — not to mention the best breweries in the hemisphere. With the bureau’s help, attendees will enjoy every aspect of the city — it’s walkability, history, culture and vibrant local cuisine.
SOUTHWEST
Photo Credit: Visit El Paso
On the far western edge of Texas, bordering the Rio Grande, the historic city of El Paso welcomes meeting planners and industry professionals with a host of services provided by Visit El Paso. The agency offers a wide range of services that includes site selection tours, securing venues that match the event’s requirements and providing logistical support such as transportation and accommodation arrangements. An expert team ensures seamless coordination between various service providers, from A/V suppliers to catering services.
The bureau also runs comprehensive familiarization tours and is ever at the ready to help make every event and function memorable. There are many reasons why El Paso stands as a premier destination for meetings and events, and the team at Visit El Paso is always excited to share them.
An ideal destination for meeting professionals seeking a walkable, safe and lively destination that offers collaborative support for events, The Woodlands lies 25 minutes north of Houston Intercontinental Airport and is named for its development in and around 28,000 tree-filled acres. Here, Visit the Woodlands serves as an extension of the planner’s team, providing resources and assistance with every aspect of hosting a meeting, including RFP distribution, site selection, off-site venue and transportation coordination, on-site information booths and more.
A vibrant, walkable urban corridor teeming with culture, and with Sonoran Desert inspiration shining throughout every square foot of flexible meeting space, Phoenix is justly proud of its reputation as a major convention city. The reps at Visit Phoenix love to show off the more than $5 billion in recent downtown investments, not to mention the new brewery in the ultramodern Phoenix Convention Center. Whether a supersized mega event or a more intimate corporate gathering, the Visit Phoenix team deliver the information and inspiration to make it a success.
FAR WEST
Photo Credit: Meet Long Beach
As a destination for conventions, meetings and events, the city of Long Beach, Calif., is ably represented by Meet Long Beach, which employs seasoned sales professionals placed in key markets throughout the United States, as well as administrative and support staff. This team pursues major convention business for the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center as well as events of all stripes able to meet in the city’s wide variety of excellent venues.
Whether bringing groups to cultural repositories like the Aquarium of the Pacific, properties like the Best Western Plus Hotel at the Convention Center, lively nightspots like the Altar Society Brewing Co. or the beautiful new gathering spaces at 440 Elm, the team at Meet Long Beach can help find just the right spot for any group.
In response to a real need to make it easier for hotel and venue sales professionals to get together with their event-planner clients, Explore Seattle Southside devised the Business Development Scholarship program, which manages and pays for hotel and venue-sales professionals to attend industry conventions and trade shows, connecting them directly with potential clients. It’s one more innovative way this destination marketing organization helps to make meetings happen in the southern part of a dynamic Northwest city.
Connecting more than 1,000 local member businesses with meeting professionals, Visit Seattle is particularly proud to support the city’s diverse communities by working in tandem with planners, local vendors and community organizations to identify key causes and points of passion that can be supported while groups are in town. The DMO creates campaigns like SEAforSHE, which highlights the city’s high share of women-owned enterprises, as well as initiatives to celebrate the local LGBTQIA+, indigenous tribes and other populations.
Whether a client is looking to plan or attend an event from near or far, the team at Visit Santa Barbara rolls out a special welcome mat, ready to share all the pertinent details about this especially vibrant area along California’s Central Coast, including resources available to take gatherings to another level. From exhilarating outdoor adventure to fascinating arts and culture to a deep appreciation for good food and wine, the city’s many treasures are attendee-friendly, as is the marketing organization that helps make it all happen.
INTERNATIONAL AND U.S. TERRITORIES
Photo Credit: Destination Toronto
Major meetings and events are a core driver of Toronto’s visitor economy. To that end, Destination Toronto, the city’s official destination marketing organization, has debuted its Cultures Remix initiative. With 53 percent of its residents having been born outside of Canada, the city has a unique identity, which this new program celebrates in a captivating video featuring Randell Adjei, the first designated poet laureate of Ontario. But that’s not all.
The DMO also has launched the Toronto DEI+A (for accessible) Planner Guide, a comprehensive tool for planning events that are sustainable, accessible and inclusive. The guide showcases the city as welcoming to all and serves as a valuable reference, spotlighting Toronto's experts in DEIA, venues, vendors and organizations. By sharing this resource with events coming to the city, Destination Toronto hopes to create a positive legacy for both attendees and the city in which they meet.
Thanks to a collaborative industry partnership with Cashel Travel and Air Canada in October 2023, VisitScotland Business Events helped bring together top suppliers and business media to experience Scotland's exceptional meetings landscape. The trip highlighted everything from Scotland’s dramatic landscapes of the Trossachs and Borders to the energy and vibrancy of iconic cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh, with a special focus on a diverse array of venues, from state-of-the-art conference centers to historic landmarks. Such efforts have paid off big in 2024.
Offering a captivating blend of modernity and tradition, the Principality of Monaco is a hub for elite international sporting events and has a vibrant cultural scene, colorfully promoted by the Visit Monaco Convention Bureau. To directly help planners, the bureau assigns a coordinator who liaises with all facilities and local contacts, while the Monaco Meetings Offer works in tandem with venues like the Grimaldi Forum and major hotels to properly tailor resources to an event’s requirements.