Far from the theme park crowds, set within a rolling North Florida panorama of luxuriant trees, quaint antique districts and crisp, clear, refreshing springs, Gainesville is the place to be when you want your meeting and attendees to be equally relaxed.
"We like to say our attractions are not distractions," says Nancy Fischer, director of sales for the Gainesville/Alachua County VCB, referring to such popular sites as the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park and the Harn Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Florida.
When delegates aren’t gathering at the university’s various convention venues or at hotels that include the Hilton University of Florida Conference Center, they may find themselves grinding sugar cane with Florida Cracker farmers at Dudley Farm State Park or digging for pre-historic Mastodon bones with staff from the Florida Museum of Natural History.
But down-home as Gainesville may seem, there are some pretty high-tech ways to experience it. Geocaching, an adventure game for GPS users, may lead to nesting gators or a prehistoric sinkhole (http://www.floridacaching.com), while a new cell tour program includes downloadable guides to areas like Paynes Prairie State Preserve and the Old Florida Heritage Highway (www.gainesvillecelltours.com).
Meanwhile, the VCB is continuing its spring and fall conference grants of $75,000 each to help groups defray their meeting costs. The most any one group would be eligible for is $10,000.
Another tool in Fischer’s sales arsenal is the new Great Green Grant, offering planners up to $500 in carbon offsets in either of two categories: reforestation or energy efficiency retrofitting.
It’s all part of "Gainesville’s green meeting mission," as Fischer calls it, to give back some of what is bestowed so freely by nature in this verdant corner of the Sunshine State.
