Tourism Officials Busy Promoting City

From hosting travel bloggers, to talking up local meeting venues to traveling the trade show circuit, officials from Fredericksburg's Department of Economic Development and Tourism have had a busy spring trying to lure outsiders. 

For instance, a "Focus of Fredericksburg" program resulted in two regional governmental associations hosting meetings in the city. The Focus of Fredericksburg event is held periodically by the Department of Economic Development and Tourism to highlight meeting and conference resources within the city for meeting planners. In early May, the Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia chapter of the American Public Works Association and the Virginia Association of Local Tax Auditors both held meetings in Fredericksburg. 

Tourism officials have also been busy on the trade show circuit, with staff recently exhibiting at a two-day travel show at the Pentagon and a one-day show at the USDA and National Institute of Health. City tourism officials also had a productive trip to Houston, where they participated for the first time in a conference planning trade show called "Collaborate". During that trip, city staff had 22 appointments with meeting planners, returning with one request for 630 hotel room nights as well as making many new sales contacts within the meeting and convention industry. 

The tourism office is also hosting domestic and international travel writers and television production crews throughout the spring. According to a memo to the City Council, five British travel writers researching presidential history, Marilyn Odesser-Torpey from Main Line Today magazine in west Philadelphia, a travel blogger from MetropolitanMama.com, and a Belgian film crew shooting a series on America's prettiest cities are all slated to pay Fredericksburg a visit over the next few months.