CVB Expecting 700 travel professionals to attend November convention

The Owensboro-Daviess County Convention & Visitors Bureau is expecting 700 members of the Kentucky Travel Industry Association to be in Owensboro for its annual convention on Nov. 13-15.

“These are travel professionals from all over the state,” Mark Calitri, president of the CVB, said this week. “We want to show them Owensboro.”

Dave Kirk, the CVB’s destination management director, said this will be the first time the KTIA has held its convention in western Kentucky since 2007 — a few months before the Executive Inn Rivermont closed.

It was known as the Kentucky Tourism Council back then.

The organization did have its spring travel forum in Owensboro in 2014. But the main conference hasn’t been here for 11 years.

Calitri said the convention plans to have one of its functions in the new Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum, which will open to the public on Oct. 20.

This year’s convention should be larger than those in the past, he said, because the Kentucky Hotel & Lodging Association is merging into the KTIA on Aug. 1.

With the merger, KTIA will have 830 members from across the state, according to a news release.

They include convention and visitors bureaus, tourism offices, attractions, parks, restaurants, hotels, wineries, distilleries and marinas.

State officials said in May that tourism means $310.7 million to the Daviess County economy and creates 2,078 jobs here.

Messenger-Inquirer article written by Keith Lawrence, 270-691-7301, [email protected]