As the pandemic caused the meetings and events industry to quickly adapt to fewer in-person events, Meeting Expectations’ in-house Site Selection team remains on the front lines, supporting our clients and working closely with our convention and visitor bureau (CVB) partners across the country.
In our latest guest post by Joe Thompson, director of sales at Grapevine CVB shares what the organization and community – located between Dallas and Fort Worth – are doing now and how they are readying for the months ahead.
1. How is Grapevine doing due to Covid-19?
Grapevine is beginning to thrive again! We recently launched “Grapevine’s Open” a Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex campaign to encourage locals to support Grapevine’s variety of shopping, dining and winery tasting room offerings – all of which have the necessary safety precautions in place to serve customers.
We’ve also launched a 10-week social media campaign encouraging locals to upload photos of themselves at Grapevine businesses using #ShopGrapevine or #DineGrapevine to be entered into a random drawing each week.
2. What’s new in Grapevine?
The Grapevine business community and the Grapevine CVB are joining forces to pursue accreditation for their facilities through the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) STAR accreditation program. Grapevine’s City Council approved 27 tourism-related businesses, which include hotels, city operated meeting facilities, and attractions to participate in the performance-based accreditation program that implements the industry’s highest standards for cleaning, disinfection and infectious disease prevention.
We also launched the Come Together offer to provide incentives toward future meetings. This offer . includes a $10 or more rebate per room night, when booking 20 or more rooms for a minimum two-night stay. This rebate is valid for new business booked and contracted for the remainder of 2020 and into 2021.
3. How do bookings look today?
We are now mostly seeing leisure business; however, we are hoping that this trend changes by fall. Several conferences and events have been rescheduled or postponed until later this fall.
The opening that everyone is looking forward to, including myself, is Hotel VIN, which opens September 2020 as part of the Marriot’s Autograph collection. Hotel VIN offers eight meeting rooms, including an elegant ballroom, three private dining rooms, wine tasting room and a rooftop terrace with 20,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, plus an additional 38,000 square-foot outdoor plaza.
