In Hartford, tourism, convention and other hospitality workers got on the Bus. The Hospitality FAM bus tour for frontline workers was launched in Hartford, Connecticut last week. Pictured at the inaugural bus tour are (clockwise, from top center): H. Scott Phelps, President of the Greater Hartford Convention & Visitors Bureau; Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez; Karen Sikora-Berard, General Manager of the Crowne Plaza Hotel Hartford-Downtown; Former Hartford Mayor and Bus Tour Guide Mike Peters; and Diane Moore, Marketing Manager for the Central Regional Tourism District.
When a meeting attendee, business traveler or vacationing needs a recommendation for things that range from a good place to eat to where is there a 24-hour pharmacy in town, usually the first person they ask is a waiter, concierge or similar worker on the frontline of the hospitality and convention industry. These are the people who need to know, and officials in the Nutmeg State have taken a proactive (and fun!) approach to getting those who need to know the information they need to know!
In Connecticut, these workers were taken on a familiarization (FAM) bus tour, a procedure well known to travel and hospitality writers but one of the few to actually help expand the local knowledge of the people who interact one on one with visitors.
The Greater Hartford Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Central Regional Tourism District, known as
River Valley/CONNECTicut, sponsored the Worker’s FAM coach bus tour in November, introducing more than 100 frontline workers—including waiters, hotel switchboard operators, concierges, parking valets and
Connecticut Convention Center employees—to the full range of resources in the Greater Hartford area, such pharmacies, convenience stores, emergency rooms, as well as resturaunts, lodgings and special neighborhoods and famous attractions, such as
The Mark Twain House and Museum,
Wadsworth Atheneum of Art,
Old State House. The FAM frontline worker bus tours are expected to continue throughout 2007.
