Domestic Marketing
The Domestic Marketing program works with travel industry trade suppliers including tour operators, receptive operators, travel agents and meeting planners to help increase their efforts to bring visitors to North Carolina. The Division reaches domestic tour operators by leading delegations of local tourism partners from across the state to annual conventions and tradeshows of the National Tour Association (NTA); Student Youth Travel Association (SYTA); North Carolina Motor Coach Association (NCMA); Travel South USA's Showcase; and American Bus Association (ABA). The Division also organizes signature events, sales missions to key markets, and familiarization tours of North Carolina. Industry partners team with the Division to host and participate in these efforts.
Recent successes include hosting the American Bus Association (ABA) Marketplace and the Travel, Events and Management in Sports (TEAMS) Annual Conference in Charlotte. Nearly 3,500 ABA member delegates and industry leaders participated in more than 110,000 quality appointments and attended more than 40 educational seminars at the event. According to ABA, one motorcoach spending one night at a destination translates into as much as $11,660 for that local economy. Marketplace typically generates up to $3.5 million for a destination region's hotels, restaurants and retail shops. The ABA event was so successful that the ABA recently announced they were returning to Charlotte for their 2013 conference.
The Travel, Events and Management in Sports (TEAMS) conference & expo is a leading trade show for the Sports-Event industry--1,400 industry members from all over the world to catch up on the latest trends and issues facing the industry. Estimated economic impact for TEAMS 2009 was $7.4 million. More than 40 partners from across the state including destinations as large as the Outer Banks and as small as Goldsboro joined the Division at this event.
The Division also develops branding and partnership opportunities with AAA Carolinas and other AAA organizations to increase third-party pre-packaged travel sales to North Carolina; works to increase awareness of the Blue Ridge Parkway by co-hosting an annual familiarization tour for AAA and CAA counselors in partnership with Virginia; maintains and makes available publicly an inventory of sporting event facilities and potential venues across the state on sportsnc.com.
The Division's domestic marketing manager works with destinations across the state to promote sports events as a unified brand of sportsnc.com. Sports events bring tremendous economic impact to communities large and small throughout the state and have remained strong despite the current recession. For more information on sports event recruitment, go to the Sports Program section.
Resources
2010 NTA North Carolina leads & notes (.xls)
2011 ABA North Carolina leads & notes (.xls)
2011 Travel South leads & notes (.xls)
For more information on domestic programs, please contact Kristi Driver at (919) 733-7413 or kdriver@nccommerce.com.