CVBs Cite Extensive Site Improvements

<B>CVBs Cite Extensive Site Improvements</B>

Cyber space is becoming increasingly important to Florida convention and visitors bureaus, as four of the largest bureaus in the Sunshine State have launched new Web sites in the past six months, and several others have upgraded existing sites.

During the summer, the Orlando Convention & Visitors Bureau launched a new business-to-business Web site, www.orlandoinfo.com/cvb, which offers a wide range of information about meeting facilities and lodging in the Orlando area, along with an apparatus to submit requests for proposals via the Internet. The site also contains extensive information about the Orange County Convention Center and other public convention facilities in Orlando, including schedules of upcoming events. The Orlando CVB site also includes a link to another useful site for groups, www.dineinorlando.com, which contains detailed information about scores of Orlando restaurants, including their seating capacities, size of private dining rooms and, in some cases, sample menus at the restaurants' own Web sites linked into the primary site.

In October, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau launched a new site, www.gmcvb.com, which contains an enhanced and upgraded city guide and a personal trip guide on which travelers can log on and plan Miami itineraries. The Miami CVB also maintains an additional site for marketing the destination, www.tropicoolmiami.com.

Also launched this fall was the new site of the Tampa Convention & Visitors Bureau, www.visittampabay.com. The new site, which contains extensive information about facilities and lodging in Tampa, came as part of a re-focusing of the city's marketing effort, in which the Tampa/Hillsborough Convention & Visitors Association became the Tampa CVB.

Tampa's neighbor just across the bay, St. Petersburg, got a Web site in 2000 as the St. Petersburg/Clearwater CVB launched its new site, www.floridasbeach.com. Two other major city convention and visitors bureau sites got upgrades this year as well: the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB's site, www.sunny.org, and the Jacksonville & the Beaches CVB site, www.jaxcvb.com.

Disney World also launched a new Web site specifically for meeting and convention groups this year, www.disneymeetings.com. The site offers extensive information about group facilities at Disney World, including a hotel-by-hotel comparison page.