(Staff photo by Patricia McGrath)
By CATHERINE DONNELLY
Special to the PRESS
Harmony Heard, the new Director of Sales for Visit South Padre Island (VSPI), formerly the Visitor’s Bureau, introduced herself to the community at October’s ‘Coffee & Conversation’ meeting hosted by the South Padre Island’s Chamber of Commerce. She announced several reveals which will help create more sales for local businesses.
Heard stated that VSPI aims to provide value to the community by driving guests and visitors to South Padre Island (SPI) and the surrounding communities so that they will come and support our local businesses.
“We will continue to focus on competing on a national level as the best marketplace to host group meetings and events,” said Heard.
The first reveal was that moving forward, the Visitor’s Bureau’s outdated name will now be updated to ‘Visit South Padre Island,’ which brings it to the industry standard.
Heard’s team is tasked with promoting South Padre nationwide as a world-class destination to increase tourism and visitor-ship. There has already been a serious uptick in sales since her arrival. Her team increased group opportunities by 37% over August, which led to a potential of more than 13,000 room nights for the market.
The Convention Center room rental exceeded budget by an overwhelming margin of 179%. Heard’s team planned 34 events across the island just for October, part of the island’s slower season.
Heard attends various tradeshows and conventions for meeting planners to meet hundreds of event professionals to help drive events to the island.
Next week, I will attend IMEX – the mecca of global meetings and event planners, where I have appointments with planners from the United States and Mexico.
“Something I am truly excited about is that we have been selected to host Destination Southwest from November 29 through December 1 this year! We won this amazing event where our destination is in the spotlight and will bring 45 meeting planners to our destination to learn why we love this island so much,” said Heard.
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