Posted by Don Meador, Landmark Hotel Group

Yes, we're having company in my hometown. About 3,000 of our closest friends are converging on Virginia Beach, Virginia for a week of networking, socializing, and getting down to business. This is one of my favorite trade "shows" each year, as I'm able to reconnect with old acquaintances and develop new relationships with motorcoach operators from across the United States.

I will be one of three delegates representing the Landmark Hotel Group, as we meet with these industry professionals to begin planning tours for 2009 and beyond. I will be joined by two of our company's sales representatives from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, as well as additional volunteers to assist with this city-wide event from all of our Virginia Beach and North Carolina hotels.

This is the first event of its size to come to the new Virginia Beach Convention Center, which opened this past year about a mile from world-famous oceanfront resort area.

To say that this city is buzzing with excitement would be an enormous understatement. Not only does an event like this boost hotel, restaurant, and attraction revenues during the event, but the exposure Virginia Beach will receive as a tour destination is huge, and the city can expect to see residual tour bus business as a result of being selected as the location for this particular event.

In the past, the ABA Marketplace has been held in cities like Nashville (at the Gaylord Opryland), New York City, Chicago, and Grapevine, Texas (again, at the Gaylord). All of those cities have experienced an increase in tourism as a result of hosting ABA's annual Marketplace.

Gone are the days of being a sleepy beach-side tourist town nestled to the east of the country's largest Naval base at Norfolk. Virginia Beach is emerging as a premier year-round destination, successfully bringing new meetings and conventions to the area that would never have considered coming here before. Leisure (read vacation) visitors continue to pour into the area during the summer months, but more and more the city is welcoming student, senior citizen, and mixed adult tour groups that roll in on buses during the spring and fall months. In addition, Virginia Beach has become the home to regional and national soccer, field hockey, basketball, softball, and baseball tournaments.

The Landmark Hotel Group is one of several sponsors of the "Edge of Chic" event at the new Town Center of Virginia Beach on Monday night, where Aeros will be performing at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts. I look forward to seeing the ABA Marketplace attendees' reaction to what the city has done with the "center" of town. The seventeen block mixed-use Town Center has been a home run for Virginia Beach, offering residents and visitors a wide variety of shopping, dining, night life and hotel options, and has given the city's central business district quite a distinct personality.

SO... if you don't hear from me for a few days, understand that the convention is in town and I get as excited about conventions as I do Travel Blog Carnivals!

Read more from Don on his Blog