A Few Days Colored in Amber. Part 1

Busy isn't a word to describe my current work-life. It's more like, overly, CRAZY, busy. So, with everything else I have to do, can you imagine that I still constantly think about what I should do my next blog post on!? I know, I have issues. ;) But, it hit me when I was driving home from a late night of work, that I should do a series of posts of what I've been so busy with! Here it is folks, the beginning of a few days in my work-life! Let me start by saying that I work for the Palm Springs Desert Resort Communities Convention and Visitors Authority...a mouthful, right!? For my fingers sake, and your's, I will just refer to it as the CVA. Did you know that most cities/towns have a CVA or CVB? It's an organization that serves as a destination marketing organization. It has a few departments that make it work. First, a Membership Department, in which they get local businesses to be a member so we can market them to tourists and meeting planners. There is a Travel Industry Sales Department, their purpose is to drive leisure guests to our destination. They also work with International and Local travel agencies to bring visitors to Palm Springs. We also have a Marketing Department that puts together all of our Marketing Campaigns. Then, there is my department, Convention Sales & Services. We help promote the destination to meeting planners, in hopes they book a meeting in the Palm Springs area.

Our destination is very unique because we have to sell 8 different cities! It makes it very difficult at times, especially when politics play a role but, for the most part it's nice to have a variety of things to offer our clients. We brand ourselves as Palm Springs, because it's the most known city to visitors, though all 8 cities make up what we call the Coachella Valley. Now that you have a little back ground of what a CVA is about...I can get into my responsibilities. I'm the Convention Sales Coordinator. In a nutshell, I coordinate our client site inspections and trips to the destination. Along with a lot of other things that I don't want to bore you with. ;) It's my job to wine and dine the client, take them around from hotel to hotel, attraction to off-site venues to find the perfect fit for their meeting. We have two major events a year where we bring out approximately 20-25 meeting planners from all over the nation to come and experience the destination for a couple of fun packed days! We call these events Familiarization Tours or a FAM. This is what I am going to share with you...the past couple of months I have been putting together and planning our Fall FAM. I put together the full three day itinerary for these meeting planners and tomorrow you'll read all about the first day festivities! 

Here's a challenge when planning your next trip! Google your trip destination's CVB and you may find something fun and unique to do while vacationing!