A Responsible Group

The Southeast Tourism Society exemplified its commitment to the environment at its March conference in Asheville, N.C.
By Kevin Woo

AshvilleAsheville is North Carolina's resort destination. Its collection of Art Deco buildings (the largest outside of Miami), vibrant art scene and historic estates (including the famed Biltmore) draw worldwide visitors to this relatively small city located in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains.

Each year the city receives accolades from travel magazines around the globe. Over the years, Asheville has been called one of North America's "Top 25 Arts Destinations," a "New Age Mecca" and "One of the top must-see destinations."

In 1889, George and Edith Vanderbilt and family visited Asheville and became so smitten by the area that they built the Biltmore Estate, the United States' largest privately owned home. Their dedication and commitment to the area attracted other well-to-do families, and the area flourished until the Great Depression.

The past quarter-century has seen a dramatic rise in tourism, and because of that, the Southeast Tourism Society (STS) held its semi-annual conference for 370 members in Asheville in March 2008.

"The much sought after destinations such as Asheville work for us because we attract more attendees," said Suzanne Moon, STS vice president of operations. "Asheville is a great destination-eating, dining, shopping, culture, the Biltmore Estate and the Grove Park Inn all made the city an attractive destination for our members."

Based in Atlanta, the STS promotes leisure travel, sustainable tourism and the importance of the travel industry in 12 Southeastern U.S. states. The group's mission is to strengthen and advocate for the southeastern region as a travel destination. The STS also encourages partnerships between the public and private sector of the tourism industry in order to promote sustainable economic growth but in an environmentally responsible way.

STS exemplified its commitment to the environment on the first day of the conference. Moon says that after Hurricane Katrina STS has undertaken voluntourism projects in cities where the society holds conferences. The first voluntourism project took place in Biloxi, Miss.

In Asheville, approximately 25 STS members volunteered to clean up and collect trash along the French Broad River.

"Our association is regional, and we want to do something to give back to the communities that we visit," Moon said. "Our voluntourism started out at the Jackson Library in Biloxi, which had a lot of damage from the hurricane. Now when we visit a city we try to give back and leave the city a little better than we found it."

The host hotel was the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa. The resort-which is set on 140 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains and 1.5 miles from downtown Asheville-first opened in 1913. At its opening dinner, former U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan declared to the guests assembled that the property had been "built for the ages."

Fully renovated in 2002, the resort offers 510 guest rooms, 42 meeting rooms and 50,000 square feet of meeting space, a 40,000-square-foot spa, a golf course, six tennis courts, two pools and an indoor sports complex.

Moon says that because each STS member pays individually for accommodations, it was important to find a hotel that could offer a competitive rate. Moon adds that the meeting space layout was particularly appealing because all conference activities (meals, trade shows and meetings) could take place in the same area and were not spread all over the resort.

Local Eats
Asheville has a vibrant food scene that includes not only a bustling restaurant community but a thriving local farming community that supplies fresh fruits, vegetables and locally raised, free-range, hormone-free beef, pork and lamb to the area's chefs.

"Western North Carolina has many things to offer visitors, not least of which is a vibrant and prolific local food industry," said Allen Dye, executive chef at M7 Event Solutions and caterer for the STS event. "As a foodie, I often think of places in terms of the food products that are available. For example, when visiting Alaska one thinks of king crab and wild salmon. In Maine, one thinks of lobster and blueberries. In Louisiana, one thinks of crawfish and redfish.

"Visitors to Asheville will find it easy to locate organic pork, goat's cheese dairies, rainbow trout and some very fine local wines during a visit," Dye continued. "Not only do these and other products grace the tables of local restaurants, but the farms, dairies and wineries can also serve as special event space for groups."

The Asheville CVB maintains a close relationship with M7 Event Solutions, and when the STS event began to take shape in early 2008, Dye and his staff were asked to create a special meal featuring products that were grown or produced locally.

"We invited several local producers to join our staff to serve the food and meet the guests," Dye said. "This allowed the attendees to not only taste the items, but also to meet and talk with the people who actually produced them. Afterward, many attendees told me that they made contacts that will last for many years."

Dye and the team created a menu that included black-eyed pea cakes with Lee County corn relish, fried green tomato finger sandwiches, mini trout cakes and venison kabobs. The entrees were equally adventuresome-grilled sunburst trout tacos, grilled sausages that were made from various kinds of locally raised game and farm-raised deer on a skewer served with moonshine onions.

For STS guests, the dinner served as a way of putting a face to the food that they were enjoying.

"Too often in today's world we think of food as arriving at our supermarket wrapped in plastic and comfortably nestled on Styrofoam trays," Dye said. "It was a unique experience to have food served by the very people who grew it, and many guests commented to me about how much they enjoyed that experience." One+

KEVIN WOO is a San Francisco-based freelance writer.

What's New in Asheville

  • The Bohemian Hotel Asheville opened in March in historic Biltmore Village with 104 guest rooms, a 2,200-square-foot ballroom, 1,000 square feet of pre-function space and an outdoor rooftop courtyard. It is located across the street from the Biltmore Estate.
  • Hotel Indigo Asheville-a boutique hotel with 100 guest rooms, 12 condominiums, a small boardroom and a café/bar-will open this summer. The hotel will be located downtown near the Grove Arcade.
  • The Hilton at Biltmore Park will open in late 2009 with 165 guest rooms and 4,000 square feet of meeting space. The hotel will be located in a town square shopping and entertainment development that includes P.F. Chang's, REI, Barnes & Noble, a cinema and other retail/restaurant options.

Transportation Tip

  • The Asheville Regional Airport is a 15-minute drive from downtown Asheville. Continental, US Airways, Northwest Airlines and Delta serve the Asheville market with nonstop service to Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis and Newark, N.J.

Fun Facts

  • Asheville luminary E.W. Grove made his fortune selling cure-all tonics including Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic. After arriving in Asheville, Grove built the historic, architectural icons Grove Arcade, Grove Park Inn and Battery Park Hotel.
  • Asheville is home to the Basilica of Saint Lawrence-the largest unsupported tile dome in the United States. The famous architect who built the basilica, Signor Rafael Guastavino, is interred at the rear of the chapel.
  • Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald spent time at the Grove Park Inn while his wife Zelda was being treated at Highland Hospital. Zelda and eight other patients perished in a 1948 fire that destroyed the hospital.