Volume 2 Issue 2

How Creativity and Innovation Fuel our Economy and Transform Businesses

Thursday, July 16, 2009
11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.
Willamette Valley Event Center
210 Monroe St., Mt. Angel

Tickets on sale soon - watch your email for updates!

Keynote Speaker: Chris Coleman, Artistic Director of Portland Center Stage, will be sharing

Travel Salem received the Oregon Governor’s Creative Tourism Development Award Sunday, April 19, 2009 at the 25th Annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism held in Salem at the Salem Conference Center. This prestigious award was presented to Travel Salem from the Oregon Tourism Commission for the creation of the Travel Salem Travel Café. The award recognizes an innovative program, promotion, or product by an Oregon individual, organization, business, community or region which epitomizes a new way of thinking about the tourism and hospitality industry.

On hand to accept the award for Travel Salem was Angie Morris, President & CEO; Irene Bernards, Tourism Marketing & PR Director; Debbie McCune, Director of Sales; Kathie Reeves, Marketing & Online Manager; Sue Nichols, Community Development Director; and Anthony Tham, Public Relations Manager.

“This project started with

Throughout the course of building the Travel Café, Travel Salem has been keeping a photo diary on the progress. Click on the photo photo below to view nine different angles of the Travel Café from start to end:

Click here for additional views from the photo diary and check out the photos from the Travel Café grand opening celebration this past April!

Travel Salem is offering a free listing to businesses within the Salem city limits on their TravelSalem.com website. Travel Salem is a non-profit organization that promotes Salem and Marion and Polk counties for leisure tourism and convention and event business. The TravelSalem.com website is the official tourism and meeting website for Salem and had 250,000 visits to the site during 2007-08.

Businesses interested in a free listing and fit the Association’s criteria (within the city limits of Salem, and no political, religious, pornographic or personal content) can go to www.TravelSalem.com to self-submit listing information.

Questions regarding this service can be directed to Kathie Reeves, Travel Salem’s Marketing & Online Manager, 503-581-4325 ext. 24 or kreeves@travelsalem.com.

Travel Salem has partnered with Box Office Tickets to bring AbsolutelyTix, a new ticketing network for Salem and Marion and Polk counties. The new AbsolutelyTix network makes it easy for local arts, non-profit, and other community organizations to promote events, sell tickets and transact other business over the Internet. It also provides a single source of online information about upcoming local shows and events.

“AbsolutelyTix furthers our mission to be a comprehensive resource for visitors through our Travel Café, which will now serve as a centralized ticketing outlet,” said Angie Morris, President and CEO of Travel Salem. “It also gives us

Since the summer of 2007, a group of Salem’s large downtown employers have been actively pursuing Vision 2020 projects to enhance the heart of the City - downtown, north downtown, and the Edgewater/Wallace area of West Salem. From this collaboration, SalemAlive.com, a comprehensive website of Salem events, has been created.

Travel Salem provided the TravelSalem.com website as a host for SalemAlive.com. Residents and visitors can easily access additional information

Visitors to a region or city can get a good feel for a community from its downtown. Unique boutiques, one-of-a-kind shops, diversity of local performing and visual art, a mixture of restaurants, combined with outstanding architecture, history and festive events and promotions, characterize a successful downtown. Visitors are attracted to

Looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of your marketing program? Try one of these high-profile sponsorship and/or advertising opportunities:

• NEW! 25th Anniversary Special Offer - GPS listing included for a limited time with TravelSalem.com expanded listings (criteria apply)
• NEW!  Garmin GPS Promotions - list your special on a GPS unit rented from the Travel Cafe.
• NEW! GPS Sponsorship - sign up to be a "Featured Partner"  (limited to 6 sponsors a year)
• Marketing Exchange Luncheons (limited to 2 sponsors, every other month)
• Industry E-Newsletter (one sponsor, every other month)
• Consumer E-Newsletter (one sponsor, quarterly)
• Travel Café Plasma Screens (sponsorship and advertising)
• I-5 Rest Area Advertising
• TravelSalem.com Advertising

Contact Sue Nichols, Travel Salem’s Community Development Director at 503-581-4325, ext. 22 or snichols@TravelSalem.com to discuss which options will benefit your business the most!

Twitter is a social networking site that allows friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of short (140 characters or less) and frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

It has quickly evolved into a tool that businesses and organizations use to market themselves to

Travel Salem is hard at work promoting Salem as a conference, meeting, and event destination. We offer diverse services to groups ranging from gathering items for welcome bags to arranging pre- and post-tours to providing on-site visitor information. The services Travel Salem offers is the “frosting on the cake” that ensures a successful event.

Here is a sample of upcoming conferences, meetings and events:

Travel Salem’s membership has grown to 271 members! Local businesses are experiencing the benefits of the results-oriented marketing opportunities that Travel Salem offers its partners. Check out the list of members and be sure to

Salem area events are extremely important in attracting visitors to the area but they also add to the quality of life here in Salem and the Marion and Polk counties region. Please remember to post your events for FREE at TravelSalem.com through a self-submittal online process. Be sure to visit TravelSalem.com to learn about the various events taking place in your community. Let’s help support these events and encourage visitors to take an extra day, or two, in Salem to enjoy these unique activities.

Here is a sample of a few upcoming events

Come join us in the Travel Café for First Wednesday - July 1 - from 5:00 – 8:00 pm. This month we will be featuring Cold Stone Creamery who will have ice cream samples, and Fresh to You Produce, serving jam and syrup samples, a great complement to the ice cream. What a delightful way to spend your evening, tasting delectable samples while browsing through brochures in our Travel Café. We hope to see you on July 1st!