To Greg Gee on his speedy recovery following the frightening attack he suffered while in New Orleans. Glad you are healing and back in the saddle!
A Publication of the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau
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TRAVEL DOWN BUT NOT OUT
So says the Travel and Tourism Research Association as they monitor national trends. According to their February 2009 release, four out of five 2008 travelers expect to take a leisure trip in the next six months with only one out of seven saying they will not travel due to the economy. Those respondents most likely to travel in 2009 are households with children(83%), households in high income brackets(85%) and older travelers(89% over the age of 60).
On the business travel side, only a quarter of those surveyed say they will take a business trip in the next six months either because of company travel restrictions or cancellation of meetings or conventions.
The ECVB reports an increase in our bookings since our initial announcement in January. To date, we have 79 bookings for 2009 that guarantee 71,117 room nights. These bookings represent religious conferences, corporate meetings, sporting events and military reunion groups. Our total room nights for 2008 was 79,000 so we are feeling positive about our position in 2009 at this point.
HOOSIER TRAVEL NEWS
At Hoosier Hospitality - Indiana's state tourism annual conference - a report issued by Smith Travel Research, the national research company for hotel stats in America, showed Evansville's occupancy rate through February increased by 19%. With the exception of the Indiana South market, all other Indiana regions show a decline from .8% to 24.8% in occupancy.
This follows what our hotel sales staffs report at our monthly meeting. Last year, they remarked that weekend traffic was down but say this year is rebounding well.
NORTH AND SOUTH JOIN FORCES!
In an effort to design a policy to move state association meetings around the state, North and South converged in Evansville recently. Bob Whitehouse and Jim Nirmaier (sales executive from the Fort Wayne CVB) met to create a coordinated plan to present to state associations and agencies the will detail the rotation. Indianapolis would be the host city every other year with Fort Wayne and Evansville alternating hosting the conferences the other years.
Both CVBs believe presenting a coordinated plan to meeting organizers will be well received. Including incentives in the plan is also being considered. Good luck to Bob and Jim on this project!
Evansville CVB - Staff Bob Whitehouse, Acting Exec. Dir./Dir. of Sales
Jan Fisher, Office Manager
Laura Libs, Marketing & Comm. Mgr.
Ashley Vezzoso, Sales Support Mgr.
Bitsy Mourning, Sales Executive
Julia Pillow, Office Assistant
Evansville CVB – Board of Commissioners Joseph J. Vezzoso, President
Kristen Tucker, Vice President
Claudette Branson, Treasurer
Greg Gee, Commissioner
David Dunn, Commissioner
Mike Roeder, Commissioner
Stacey McNeill, Secretary
