Black Meetings and Tourism

Black Meetings & Tourism June/July 2009: www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 50 several with links to the area's Black her- itage. The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum at Historic Palmer Park Institute is the site of a renowned preparatory school for African-Americans that Brown founded in 1902. A haven for escaped slaves was located at what is now part of the campus of Guilford College, while one of the exhibits at nearby Mendenhall Plantation, a Quaker estate, is a false-bot- tom wagon once used to transport run- away slaves. At the Greensboro Historical Museum, visitors can view an exhibit on the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins. Art enthusiasts can tour the African-American Atelier, one of four art galleries housed in the Greensboro Cultural Center at Festival Park. Three more notable points of interest are Guilford Courthouse National Military Park; Tannenbaum Historic Park, a former 18th century farmstead; and Castle McCulloch, a restored 19th century gold refinery in nearby Jamestown. The CVB can help event planners with site inspections, bid proposals, media contacts, family programs and tours. It offers a computerized housing bureau for groups using multiple hotels and four hours of free registration assistance for four hours for groups booking at least 50 room nights. For more information call (800) 344- 2282. NATCHEZ, MS Largest meeting venue: Natchez Con- vention Center Complex ¾ 23,000 sq. ft. of function space on the first floor, 6,670 sq. ft. on the second floor Number of area guestrooms: 1,297 "Natchez has been so fortunate to host thousands of visitors throughout the year for over three quarters of a century that area hoteliers, restaurateurs, and retailers have been positioned to keep their rates economically reasonable over the course of time," says Sally B. Durkin, media liaison for the Natchez Convention & Visitors Bureau. "Even Natchez restaurants with high-end entrees are still less costly than comparable meals in other tourism destination markets, and new hotels that have come online very recently offer very affordable rack rates, even on weekends." Durkin says local hotel properties and attractions are providing a number of incentives to draw business in the face of the current economic downturn. She adds: "The incentives are quite strong because the various properties fully understand the value of having fewer dimes [as opposed to] no dimes at all." She also points to creative efforts to provide value-added services for visitors. "An example of this would be having horse-drawn carriages transport confer- ees between hotels and meeting facilities as opposed to vans or buses, or having a jazz or blues ensemble providing live entertainment in the meeting facility pre- function area during a break," Durkin says. Convention services offered by the bureau include site inspections, distribu- tion of bid proposals to hotels and meet- ing venues, and visitor's guides and other attendance-promoting materials. A must-see attraction for visitors to Natchez is the NAPAC Museum, which is operated by the Natchez Association for the Preservation of Afro-American

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