North Carolina’s Triad region, consisting of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, is especially important to the success of the Southeast’s tourism industry. The three locales, as well as their surrounding areas, are overflowing with new developments, history, attractive dining and entertainment options, and a variety of meeting venues, not to mention lush scenery.
“Everyone wants to come to North Carolina—it’s beautiful,” says Henri Fourrier, president and CEO of the Greensboro Area CVB. “We are accessible, we are affordable, and people like coming here.”
Piedmont Triad International Airport, only 12 miles from downtown Greensboro, 13 miles from High Point and 20 miles from Winston-Salem, makes the region easily reachable.
The area will become even more accessible next year when Skybus Airlines launches a hub at the airport. Throughout the beginning of 2008, Skybus plans to initiate flights to Columbus, Ohio; Portsmouth, N.H.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., Hartford, Conn.; and Los Angeles.
Greensboro
“Two things stand out when you think of Greensboro: its accessibility and its facilities,” Fourrier says. “We are accessible by highway and air and for some of the larger national meetings that we do, when we consider working with the group, the first thing we ask them is where their membership is concentrated, because often it is within a drivable distance to us.”
In terms of facilities, Fourrier isn’t shy to point out the city’s affinity for sports with the sprawling Greensboro Coliseum Complex, home to a 23,500-seat arena, a 2,300-seat performing arts theater and 150,000 square feet of exhibit space.
Just a mile down the road is the Joseph S. Koury Convention Center and the attached Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons, which together offer more than 250,000 square feet of function space and 1,000 guest rooms.
According to Fourrier, the city is fast becoming a meetings magnet.
“What happens is that a lot of groups typically visit first-tier cities in rotation and after a while they want a change, a little diversity,” Fourrier says.
Fourrier says the city’s downtown region has gone through impressive changes, emerging more as a destination than a business district.
“We have a tremendous amount of residential development and commercial development,” he says. “Over the past 10 years, we have really made an effort to revitalize our downtown.”
Elm Street, the city’s main drag, has seen its fair share of improvement, with an eclectic mix of shops, restaurants and art galleries, as well as the addition of the Triad Stage, a theater featuring a variety of performances.
In addition to downtown improvements, Fourrier says Greensboro’s hotel product has “seen a boom in construction,” highlighting the new Proximity Hotel, Hyatt Place Greensboro, Hilton Garden Inn Greensboro, and Residence Inn Greensboro Airport, all of which have debuted recently, as well as the newly renovated Doubletree Hotel Greensboro.
Traditionally entertaining groups from the religious, state association, sports, and SMERF markets, Greensboro’s lineup of meetings hotels also includes the Holiday Inn Express Guilford Convention Center, Embassy Suites Hotel Greensboro, Greensboro Marriott Downtown, and Grandover Resort & Conference Center.
Winston-Salem
About 28 miles west of Greensboro, visitors shouldn’t be surprised to see skilled tradesmen donning 17th and 18th century clothes, bustling through the streets on their way to work in buildings reminiscent of the same era. This is Old Salem, one of the attractions that make Winston-Salem so unique.
Founded in 1776 by Moravian craftsmen, the community of Wachovia (now Old Salem) was formed. At that time, the city was a hub of trade in the Southeast, home to workers specializing in woodworking, pottery, shoemaking, and tailoring.
Today, travelers and meeting attendees can learn about the history of the region by taking in Old Salem’s gardens, museums and 100 restored buildings, and by conversing with costumed guides.
In addition to its historical attributes, Paula Mansfield, director of sales for Visit Winston-Salem, says the destination has quite a bit to offer meeting groups.
“If you are looking for culture, we have culture; if you are looking for art, we have art; if you are looking for something for the sports enthusiast, we have it; and if you are looking for dining and dancing, we have that as well,” she says, adding that many of the city’s hotels are within walking distance of attractive shops and restaurants.
Winston-Salem is regarded as the “City of the arts,” in part because facilities such as the North Carolina School of the Arts and Stephens Center for the Performing Arts call it home, and also because Trade Street is known as the city’s arts districts due to its plethora of local artisans showcasing work at quaint galleries.
Culture-seeking groups can host unique events at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, housing meeting venues ranging from an outdoor garden to indoor galleries and an auditorium.
Perhaps even more impressive to meeting planners than its historical, cultural and artistic attributes is Winston-Salem’s meetings package, much of it neatly contained in what is called the Twin City Quarter.
Centrally located downtown, the Twin City Quarter is not only a commercial center with shops and retail outlets, but it also contains the Embassy Suites Winston-Salem, the Winston-Salem Marriott and the Benton Convention Center, all of which are connected to each other and all of which have gone through massive renovations in the past year.
One entity, Noble Investment Group, now owns the two hotels and the convention center. The entire complex offers 170,000 square feet of function space and has one sales office to streamline the booking process for planners.
The hotels in the Twin City Quarter are only a few of the meeting-friendly properties Winston-Salem offers. Others include The Hawthorne Inn & Conference Center; Sundance Plaza Hotel & Spa, which recently added a spa; and The Historic Brookstown Inn.
Meanwhile, off-site venue options include Reynolds Auditorium, Delta Arts Center and the Sawtooth Center for Visual Art.
High Point
Twice a year, thousands of visitors flock to High Point for the world’s largest furniture show, the High Point Market. It is at this time that the city’s reputation as the “Home furnishings capital of the world” kicks into high gear and the hospitality industry responds.
“High Point is quaint, it’s convenient, and it knows how to handle large crowds because twice a year we have about 80,000 guests attending the world’s largest furniture market,” says Charlotte Young, president and CEO of the High Point CVB, adding that the city traditionally entertains sports, SMERF and association groups of between 250 and 1,500 people.
“The service [personnel] in the city understand how to handle groups with great diversity,” she says. “They apply all of that ability to each group that comes in on a smaller scale and handle it in an excellent way.”
High Point has an intriguing ambience for groups, according to Young, who points out the city’s 50 retail furniture stores that sell at a discount to the public.
“[Meeting attendees] get an opportunity to do some furniture shopping while they are here,” she says.
Downtown High Point, aptly called the Showroom District because of the presence of furniture showrooms for wholesalers, also sports hotels, restaurants and the High Point Theatre, which has space for group gatherings.
Other unique venues for off-site functions include the Piedmont Environmental Center in High Point, and Castle McCulloch and the Crystal Gardens, located in nearby Jamestown.
High Point boasts three prominent convention venues: Showplace, Suites at Market Square and Providence Place, as well as the Centennial Station special event center.
Meetings hotels in the area include Radisson Hotel High Point City Center, which plans to finish a renovation in early 2009; Courtyard High Point; and JH Adams Inn.
