CONVENTION BUREAU A HELP TO ALL

Megan Kastner, a student tourism intern, assembled Cape Girardeau tourism bags at the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Souvenirs of the River City are available at the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Convention planners and promoters find relief a telephone call away when they contact Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The bureau, a department of city government, finds meeting space, banquet space, lodging and recreational facilities.

The bureau provides official welcomes to the city, assistance in transportation and backing for promotions.

The bureau's staff also assists people with information about the area's historic sites, tourist attractions and information about cities for people to relocate.

Some of the special features the bureau highlights are museums, the historic downtown area, and the city's murals and Wall of Fame.

Megan Kastner, an intern at the bureau and a senior at Southeast Missouri State University majoring in tourism, assists with office duties.

She has learned of the Paddle-Wheelers, guides who give tours around the city, meet river boats and preside over tour buses.

Anita Meintz, a Paddle-Wheeler for 15 years, said visitors appreciate the cleanliness of the downtown area and the city's history.

The bureau publishes pamphlets on the sites around Cape Girardeau; a community calendar and maps, which it includes in packets for people seeking convention sites; and provides souvenirs: Cape Girardeau T-shirts, postcards and Rush Limbaugh collector items.

As ambassadors to Cape Girardeau, the bureau's staff advertises and promotes the city with tax money from a percentage of the city's hotel and motel tax. Promotions other than conventions include tours, festivals, fairs, parades, arts and crafts shows, and concerts.

Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce President John Mehner praised the bureau's staff members for their work in promoting the city when people looking at jobs at Procter and Gamble visited the area.

"The work they accomplish is phenomenal in providing support to the chamber," Mehner said. "They did an excellent job" during the P&G promotion visits.

Bureau group-sales director Lin Jones said, "Cape has so much to offer, and visitors seek a variety of offerings such as shopping, sites and the heritage of an area."

She said the proposed River Campus project, when completed, will provide a museum of both art and history and a repertoire of performing arts, furnishing important ingredients for tour packages of Cape Girardeau's picturesque sites, including a stroll beside the river and through downtown historic sites.

Bureau director Teri Clark-Bauer said the progressive efforts of the city make the bureau's job easier.

"Visitors are looking for the history of Cape Girardeau," she said. "We have a lot to share."

In the bureau's future, Clark-Bauer said, is the renovation of the new Convention and Visitors Bureau building and the development of a Visitors Center to welcome people to the city.

There also are efforts to attract trade shows, regional conferences, sporting events, craft shows and various conventions.

The conventions bring vendors, clients, employees, employers and their families to Cape Girardeau. The Osage Centre and Show Me Center are two of the city's top facilities for conventions.

The Missouri Division of Tourism says tourists spent an estimated $12.3 billion in the state last year. Statistics indicate that during that time more than 200,000 Missourians were employed from tourism spending and Missouri was host to more than 35 million visitors.

Records prove that tourism is big business, and the staff at the Convention and Visitors Bureau works to see Cape Girardeau benefits from revenue generated by tourism dollars.