Message from Chairman Doyle Parrish

After almost three years of significant challenge for the hospitality industry in Raleigh/Wake County and across the world, we are seeing a welcomed upturn in our economy and strong evidence of better things to come. This positive outlook gives the staff and board of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau (GRCVB) renewed enthusiasm and optimism as we look forward to 2004/05.

This past fiscal year has brought some major decisions affecting the convention and tradeshow business for Raleigh and all of Wake County. Decisions by the Raleigh City Council and Wake County Board of Commissioners to fund and build the new convention center and headquarters hotel were made and a specific convention center program was chosen.

These new meeting facilities, the near completion of Progress Energy's new 19-story, multi-use building, the progress made on the new design for Fayetteville Street and the continuing action taken on the other Livable Streets initiatives have brought new life to downtown. These projects and the growth of sports facilities and other visitor amenities throughout the 12 municipalities in Wake County provide the Bureau with much to promote within the available resources.

This past fiscal year has been successful with strong results in sports marketing, meeting sales, partnership and tourism marketing, visitor services and communications and the successful implementation of our new brand "City Life, Carolina Style." The quality and quantity of sports venues allows our area to compete with anyone. This year 46 sports bookings took place amounting to over $20 million in future economic impact, and the Bureau assisted with high-profile events like the NHL Entry Draft, NCAA Basketball Tournament and CIAA Basketball Tournament.

Our convention sales staff partnered with the hotels and convention center to assist in booking 168 new meetings generating over $18 million in economic impact. The sales staff also joined forces with the convention center staff to establish a convention center-focused marketing plan to be implemented in 2004/05.

With the web site becoming an increasingly critical marketing tool in the visitor industry, the Bureau completed a new redesign and marketing overhaul of the VisitRaleigh.com and RaleighSports.org/CarySports.org web sites, while the RaleighNow! cultural initiative enjoyed significant first-year success. The GRCVB selected a new internet partner (USDM.net) to help implement an aggressive online marketing strategic plan. Partnership marketing efforts, including RaleighNow!, generated more than $565,000 in financial commitments and in-kind media support for leisure programs.

It is always our priority to service the business that comes to Raleigh and Wake County to assure return business and the positive word-of-mouth advertising for our area. We serviced 130 groups this past year amounting to $23 million in visitor spending.

The visitor business in Wake County exceeds $1 billion annually, and our goal is to keep this growing. In 2004/05 we will begin a focused effort on getting the word out about our new convention center and headquarters hotel while continuing our aggressive effort on all sizes of meeting business, sports marketing and enhancing our ability to effectively use our web site and online marketing to generate all types of visitor business to our area.

The highlights inside this annual report summarize another successful year for GRCVB, including a list of twelve awards received, plus details about where we want to go in 2004/05. With the continuing strong efforts of the Bureau staff and direction and support of the GRCVB Board of Directors, The Conference Table, Raleigh City Council, Wake County Board of Commissioners and the local hospitality and corporate community, 2004/05 should begin Raleigh1s transformation into a more competitive meetings destination.

It will be my pleasure to once again lead the GRCVB Board of Directors in 2004/05 as its chairman as we work together to build this lucrative visitor business for Wake County.