Gainesville Conducts Successful Sales Blitz in Tallahassee

VisitGainesville , several of our hotel partners, and the City of Gainesville Cultural Affairs, all converged on Tallahassee recently and contacted numerous meeting planner professionals. We were able to share and update the planners with the latest and greatest in Gainesville/Alachua County.

Not only do we have the Spring Conference Grant still open until March 31st, and we're working on our first ever Dine-About for our areas wonderful locally owned and operated restaurants throughout Alachua County. When your conference attendees are here in town, they'll now have a comprehensive dining guide to all these special-to-Gainesville places to dine. More soon....

Looking forward to 2010...

VisitGainesville is looking forward to a good year in 2010. The Spring Conference Grant offered through VisitGainesville opens March 1, 2010 and that can help meeting professionals have an even more successful Conference. Just imagaine having some of your conference expenses actually being eligible for reimbursement - now that makes for a good year! You will be able to check out the Conference Grant information at our website http://http://www.visitgainesville.com/grants/.

VisitGainesville's Director of Sales Gets a New Title

During the 2009 Annual Membership Meeting the Tallahassee Society of Association Executives announced the winners of their 2009 awards. Nancy Fischer, CMP with VisitGainesville was awarded the 2009 TSAE Associate Member of Year.

This award recognizes a TSAE Associate member who has made significant contributions and provided leadership to the profession through their work with associations, as well as contributions made as a volunteer to the non-profit community.
Before presenting the Award, TSAE Board President Stephanie Thomas, CMP had this to say about Nancy Fischer, CMP:

“This year’s award winner has worked with the association market for at least 15 years. She is also an active TSAE having served on the Board of Directors, advertizes in the TSAE Annual Directory, has served on the Education Day Committee; is a long-time Education Day Trade Show Exhibitor; and is a new Meeting Planner Roundtable Sponsor.

She is a past board member and treasurer of SGMP and was named their 2007 Supplier of the Year. She is a member of MPI-North Florida Chapter, and she participates in her company’s Volunteer Program serving as the Program Director for two years. In addition, her organization oversees a grant program for meeting planners to incentivize planners to bring their groups to her area. It is my pleasure to present the 2009 TSAE Associate Member of the Year to the very deserving, Nancy Fischer, CMP.”

We're Off to See the Wizard...

....or should we say the wizards of meeting planning in fine city of Tallahassee next Monday and Tuesday. An 11-person sales delegation departs from Gainesville eeearrrllly Monday morning to visit and sing the praises of why these meeting gurus should conducting their meetings in Gainesville.

The VisitGainesville team, comprised of hoteliers and attractions, expect to visit with more than 75 offices. That's a lot of visits...and hopefully that translates into a lot of meetings in Gainesville!

Rejuvenated and Lovin it!

Just back from the Rejuvenate Marketplace and Conference armed with two RFP's! This is quite a coupe for VisitGainesville's "inaugural" formal foray into the Religious Conference market. As we unpack our trade show bags and download our post-conference thoughts, we'll share more about how we continue to sell our destination to this incredible market!

Gainesville...A Perfect Match for Religious Meetings

Of course I'm biased...Gainesville is a great location for hosting meetings and conferences! However, even in my jaded "You Go Gainesville" mode, I am realistic that meetings in the 50 to 250 delegate count range are truly our ideal candidates. That's why I'm so thrilled to be casting my request for about 66 appointments with religious meeting planners at the upcoming Rejuvenate Marketplace who are perfect fits for this destination.

It's actually the first time we've attended this show, so imagine how thrilling it was that even before the VisitGainesville requests were submitted, we had already received five requests to meet with us!

We'll report our final appointment results in a couple of weeks; but in the true Rejuvenate spirit...we believe these appointments and the meetings they'll hopefully book in Gainesville shortly thereafter are indeed the answer to many a meeting planners prayer!

Fall Grant Cycle is Officially Complete....

Just as the mercury started to dip here last week, the flurry of fall conference grant applications being turned into the VisitGainesville Offices started heating up! Overall we received close to a dozen entries each vying for the maximum of $10,000. A nice thank you for bringing your meeting delegates to Gainesville, I say!

A Tourist Development Council sub-committee begins reviewing and scoring these applications this month with the results announced the next...so stay tuned. Also the dates for the spring conference grant workshop and cycle will be announced soon -- I suppose this confirms that it's wise to remember that the old adage to remember to "fall back and spring forward" works even in the meeting and conference business! For additional information about the conference grant visit http://www.visitgainesville.com/grants/