ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020069
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
Some distinguished guests got a surprise meal - of hot dogs. Other dignitaries recall a passed-out street person as their highlight of a city tour. And, then there's the memory of salad dressing so spicy that it burned her throat just moments before a welcoming speech.
These are the punchlines of the stories Martha Mackey and her staff tell about the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, where humor balances the stress of a high stakes bidding game for tourist dollars.
Each year, Roanoke Valley governments and businesses give the agency about $700,000 to try to attract leisure travelers and conventions to the area. Roanoke Valley tourism supports hundreds of jobs and generates several million dollars a year in taxes to local governments.
Martha Mackey, the bureau's outgoing executive director, joined the fledgling organization in 1987 as its first convention sales manager. Her job was to coax, cajole and court representatives of groups around the state and nation that needed convention space - to get them to hold their meetings here.
The pursuit of conventions is one of the roughest jobs in the tourism business. Sales people must contact dozens of organizations to solicit the business, sometimes netting only one lead. From there, hotels submit sealed bids for the group's business - a competition based on price - and the salesperson determines which is the best offer to present to the group.
A simple paper report isn't always enough, however. The Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, for example, wanted the details of Mackey's proposal in a skit. She put on a brown, plastic garbage bag, big sunglasses and white gloves and played a dancing raisin. She, along with another person sang "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" - embellished with a homemade verse - in front of 48 people. She landed the 1992 convention, her first national event booked. The group, about 1,900 people, spent $1 million in the Roanoke area, Mackey estimated.
When the group finally came to town, she was invited to sit at the head table during a formal dinner meeting. It was an evening she will never forget.
Rushing home to dress for the occasion, she mistakenly used a ring-cleaning solution to brush her teeth. Initially, she felt fine. But during the event, at her seat on the most-elevated level of a three-tier head table and above a sea of faces. "all of a sudden, my throat starts burning," Mackey said.
It was almost her turn to give a speech to welcome the group to Roanoke.
Turns out, it was something in the salad dressing that caused her throat to burn. Other guests developed similar reactions.
To be sure, it helps to have a sense of humor and a flair for the dramatic in this business.
Sometimes, out of town groups, meeting planning coordinators or tour operators want to see the area before they commit their organization to visit or steer clients here. The bureau shows them around, all expenses paid. The presentation must be polished, the guests pampered according to size of the piece of business they represent. Travel writers, whose articles have the potential to spread praise of the valley area to millions of people, receive the same red-carpet service.
The bureau's tour guides also hop on tour busses that roll into the area, and show the passengers around.
Wearing that hat, Catherine Fox, the bureau's tourism development manager, said she strikes a light, folksy tone when she leads a tour.
"Do you know why Roanoke Memorial Hospital is so important?" she asks. Her audience waits for an answer. "Because I was born there."
In a reference to the Walnut Avenue Bridge, which is closed to traffic during rebuilding, she jokes, "that was from the last motor coach, which ate too much and had too much luggage."
One group of convention advance people - who were here to evaluate the Roanoke Valley - listened as Fox gave a more serious talk about the economy and attractions. When the bus stopped with the Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital visible through the window, she explained Carilion Health System was the area's largest employer. Unfortunately, a street person lying on the ground stole the show. "He never moved the whole time we were at the stoplight," she said. "I told them, 'I think he's OK." If not, she explained, "he's at a hospital."
Mackey tells of a quandary over where the bureau would take a group of travel writers to lunch while they saw attractions at Natural Bridge, on a day when its hotel dining room was closed. The bureau called ahead and was told outdoor waterside dining was available instead. It sounded good but turned out to be a hot dog stand. The travel writers, apparently tired of gourmet dining, ate heartily without a complaint, she said.
Ed Clement of Washington, D.C., has been on the receiving end of such presentations. The bureau cited him as an example of a typical advance person.
As a planner for the Mid-Atlantic conventions of the social fraternity Omega Psi Phi, he's taken many community tours designed to impress and knows to expect the occasional humorous clash of circumstances. During a bureau-led tour of the valley in November 1994, "they were telling us about 'no crime, there was no crime' and all that. And the very next day, they found two bodies in a car," Clement said.
He is recommending Roanoke for the group's regional convention in 1999. "They made us feel right at home," Clement said. "Those folks in that department have nothing to stand back about. They're all first class."
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