July 9, 2008
IN BRIEF: TOURISM, FILM AND THE ARTS NEWS

Tourism Office showcases destinations with fams

Familiarization tours, commonly known as fams, are one of the more visible tools that the Tourism Office’s public relations team uses for getting its message into media outlets.

Recently, for example, the Tourism Office in partnership with the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (BACVA) hosted eight journalists and two public relations representatives from the United Kingdom during Baltimore’s Honfest weekend.

Camila Clark, public relations and promotions manager for the Tourism Office, and Monee Cottman, travel media manager for BACVA, arranged three days of activities for the U.K. contingent.

Pictured: Connie Yingling (far right) of the Tourism Office leads a group of New York Metropolitan Area Outdoor Press Association wrinters on an excursion last July out of Chesapeake Beach with Capt. Randy Dean aboard the Bay Hunter.

Continued...
The visitors got a glimpse of the city on a "Ride the Duck" tour bus as they listened to Jack Gerbes, director of the Maryland Film Office, and Vince Peranio, a production designer for the movie Hairspray, and HBO’s The Wire, share behind the scenes stories of local movie sets along the tour route.

During the Baltimore weekend, the British group had dinner at the Hyatt’s Pisces restaurant, breakfast at the Paper Moon diner, visited the American Visionary Art Museum and strolled around HonFest. They also went bowling at Mustang Alley’s in Harbor East and ate at Mama’s on the Half Shell in Canton, and the Woodbury Kitchen and Café Hon in Hampden.

One member of the U.K. group – who had expressed special interest in The Wire – had an opportunity to tour locations depicted in the TV show and to see The Wire exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

Connie Yingling, public relations coordinator at the Tourism Office, along with Calvert County’s Erica Stone, will host a half-dozen writers from the New York Metropolitan Area Outdoor Press Association on an excursion to Solomons, July 15-17. The writers will get first-hand experience with Chesapeake Bay fishing – and eating fresh Chesapeake Bay seafood.

In the fall, the Tourism Office will team up with Carolyn Laray from St. Mary’s County to host a press tour to Historic St. Mary’s City, which celebrates Maryland’s 375th anniversary in 2009. (English settlers aboard the Ark and the Dove landed there in 1634.) In this instance, the Tourism Office will invite specified travel writers to participate.