Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau

Celito attracts visitors bureau with hosted technology solution

Marketing an entire county as a destination for visitors is no small undertaking. It takes a well structured organization with infrastructure and support to meet the range of needs for numerous towns, venues and attractions spread across a broad geographic area. As the official and accredited destination marketing organization for all of Wake County in North Carolina, the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau has a firm grasp of what it takes to make such a venture successful.

“Seamless cooperation, communication and strong alliances among local partners are the hallmark of our future,” said GRCVB Executive Vice President Loren Gold. “That requires a strong internal foundation. Last year, as we looked at opening our new Visitor Information Center in downtown Raleigh, we realized an opportunity to shore up our technology infrastructure to support our future growth.”

A host of technology concerns

With a traditional telephone system on-site that “ran well with occasional glitches,” the GRCVB had to figure out a way to seamlessly tie in a remote location for the new Visitor Information Center. It also needed to revisit its Internet bandwidth services. At the same time, the organization became increasingly aware it could no longer effectively maintain its database servers in-house at its Fayetteville Street office in downtown Raleigh.

“Everything seemed to surface around the same time,” Gold explained, “just as we started to explore options for a new phone system.”

Rather than looking at one-off solutions for phone, Internet and other technology support, the GRCVB began to approach an overarching solution with a technology partner that could service their main office as well as satellite locations, like the Visitor Information Center (VIC) and teleworking team members. 

“Working with celito gave us an opportunity to really change the whole dynamic of how we looked at our bigger technology picture, including an evaluation of our entire IT database backup, downtime and support capabilities,” Gold said.

Gold considers the move to celito a smart one, particularly because the technology area of operations had become frustrating, due to a combination of antiquated equipment, vendor agreements that were no longer a good fit, and technology that was about five years behind. As a non-profit, the GRCVB was looking for a technology partner that would “shoot straight” with them in clear and honest discussions, and with whom they could develop a mutually beneficial relationship.

“Celito brought a lot of expertise to the situation, with a very solution-oriented approach,” he added. “They have the ability to assess the situation, understand the client’s objectives, articulate those objectives and execute a plan. Sometimes a company can do the first three, but can’t plug it in and make it go. Celito did.”

To learn more about the technology infrastructure celito implemented for the GRCVB, including voice, Internet and data center solutions, please see the attached Case Study.