Virginia Haley, Visit Sarasota County
Business Q & A
SRQ DAILY MONDAY BUSINESS EDITION
MONDAY MAY 25, 2015 |
BY JACOB OGLES
On a three-day weekend, the tourists within driving distance become an important group for area hotels. We spoke with Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County, about how the industry has looked at this holiday.
What does Memorial Day weekend mean for the local tourism industry? I would say 10 years ago, Memorial Day was not that big a weekend but now it it is a pretty big weekend for destinations. In Sarasota, it has turned into a big wedding weekend. It’s a long weekend and people try and get a jump on the June weddings; an awful lot of weddings are going on in Sarasota this weekend.
What has changed with the industry handling of this holiday? Now we do a lot of aggressive marketing that we didn’t used to do a long time ago. It is a big weekend for in-state travel, so we’ll see people coming from Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.
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