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Eating Out Is In at Events
By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall
Febrary 24, 2020
From the inception of its annual Marketplace show more than 30 years ago, the American Bus Association has set aside time for dine-arounds, offering opportunities for attendees, vendors and exhibitors to meet away from the exhibit hall.
Some of Marketplace’s 3,500 attendees, who are primarily bus and motor coach owners, get as many as 10 invitations to restaurants around the host city where organizations have reserved space to showcase their tourist destinations.
“They try to pick a location and provide entertainment to give [attendees] an experience as if they were in their own city,” says Lynn Brewer, senior vice president of meetings, events and education for the 4,000-member association, which promotes motor coach travel throughout North America. “They are hosting those operators and they want them to come and bring their business to Branson or Tennessee or New York.”
The events are popular, Brewer says, because they’re fun. “Relationships are made and business happens,” she says.