The DistiNCtly Fayetteville staff welcomed in hoteliers from around the Cumberland County area for their monthly Director of Sales (DOS) meeting on Thursday, July 11. 
Held monthly at the DistiNCtly Fayetteville headquarters building located at 245 Person Street in downtown Fayetteville, these meetings are part of DistiNCtly Fayetteville’s outreach efforts to keep area hotels up to date on potential and incoming business opportunities. 

The meeting gives DistiNCtly Fayetteville’s staff a platform to discuss potential and solidified upcoming events, marketing strategies, open bidding opportunities and updates on tourism projects in the works. 

“We were awarded the Jehovah's Witness Convention for 2025. They will be holding their convention at the Crown Coliseum,” shared Convention Sales Manager Isaiah Griffin. “This will be a city wide convention. It's going to be a great piece of business for us, it's going to be a great opportunity for us to display our city, to display our hotels, to display our value.”

Griffin also shared that the next step will be scheduling a time to bring a delegation of convention organizers to area hotels  to meet with their directors of sales. 

DistiNCtly Fayetteville also shared some of the demographic and website data they were able to gather throughout the 4th Quarter. 

• The total number of visitors to DistiNCtly Fayetteville.com came to 151,799
• Website visitors clicked through to partner websites a total of 33,412 times
• The top 10 pages visited on the site are ranked as follows: 

1. Events 

2. Unlisted

3. Things to do/ outdoors 

4. Restaurants-bars 

5. Things to do/ things to do with kids 

6. Things to do/ free things to do 

7. Things to do 

8. Blog post: Juneteenth celebrations 

9. Blog post: things to do in June 2024 in Fayetteville 

10. Places to stay 

DistiNCtly Fayetteville staff also shared some invaluable visitor demographic information for the hospitality community. 
According to data gathered by DistiNCtly Fayetteville for the FY ending in June 2024:

• Visitors spend an average of two days in the area
• 76.6% of visitors stay overnight 
• 57.6% of visitors are repeat visitors
• The top three visitor origin states are North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida  
• 12.4% of all visitors originated from Charlotte, NC 
• 12.0% of visitors originated from Raleigh, NC 
• 4.9% originated from the Greensboro- High Point - Winston Salem, NC area. 
• 21% of visitors also had a median Household income of $25K-$45K

It was also announced that an educational opportunity is now available for interested Directors of Sales. DistiNCtly Fayetteville will be hosting a two day training seminar: “Sales Training with Steve Steinhart” on Sept 10-11, 2024. 

“We’re very, very excited about this opportunity. We will be having a nationally renowned sales trainer coming into town. I have taken his course four or five times,” shared DistiNCtly Fayetteville President & CEO Devin Heath. “This is something that we're sharing with the whole community. It's not just for hotel salespeople, it's for our community. Anybody who wants to come, we certainly will make sure that there's space for you.” 

The Goal is to have 30 attendees for the session. Costs start at $200 per day and $300 per attendee for both days. Breakfast and lunch will be included in the fee. Those interested can RSVP to Director of Sales and Sports Commission Rachel Obermeier at robermeier@distinctlyfayettevillenc.com by Aug. 9, 2024. More information, including an expected location will be announced soon. DistiNCtly Fayetteville will be monitoring the interest in this seminar to determine whether they will bring Steinhart back to the area to teach on other topics. 

New staff additions are in the works at DistiNCtly Fayetteville, with two new marketing positions opening in late 2024 and a new staff member for the sports sector that is expected to be announced in the coming weeks. 

It was also announced that the Lou Hammond Group (LHG) is now the PR agency of record for DistiNCtly Fayetteville as of July 1. LHG will work closely with DistiNCtly Fayetteville to share news and announcements that highlight all that Fayetteville has to offer. 

“They came for their immersion visit earlier this week and we toured the community. After the immersion visit they followed up with us. So I am very, very excited about what these folks, how they're going to raise our game and how they're going to raise our profile,” shared Director of Marketing Melody Foote. “These guys have national connections. We've already talked about Southern Living which just thrills me.” 

Progress also continues on the DistiNCtly Fayetteville Destination guide which is expected to be released in early December. Ad space is still available for interested businesses.

“We want to make this successful, so if you're interested in paying for an ad so you’ll be listed, it'll be a basic listing. But if you want to have an advertisement in there, just reach out to any one of us and we'll be happy to put you in touch,” shared Heath.

A total of 50,000 copies will be available and will be found in the DistiNCtly Fayetteville building, welcome centers across the state and various offices as well as online. 

The goal moving forward for DistiNCtly Fayetteville will be to have more site visits, tours for meeting planners and rights holders and further showcasing Fayetteville and Cumberland County. 

The next DOS sales meeting is currently scheduled for Aug. 6 at 8:30 a.m. at the DistiNCtly Fayetteville building at 245 Person Street.