CVB targets African-American religious conventions for Grand Rapids

With Grand Rapids' convention business on the rise and millions of tourism dollars coming into the region each year, the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention & Visitors Bureau held a focus group to discover how they can attract more African-American religious conferences to the city. Summer months bring lower hotel rates and less expensive meeting venues, and that may be the ticket to attracting faith-based groups.

According to excerpts from the story:

A recent focus group held by the Convention and Visitors Bureau to gain insights into how it can attract more African-American religious conferences to DeVos Place went very well and, in some respects, exceeded expectations.

That impression came from CVB President Steve Wilson who witnessed the responses of eight area African-American pastors, two of whom have strong national ties, to an interview session led by Skot Welch of Diversity Management Strategies and Joe Jones of the Strategic Communications Group.

“It went better than we expected because we actually had a couple of national representatives of church organizations,” said Wilson.

Read the complete story here.