2019 VIRGINIA MEETINGS

A fresh take on corporate meetings

Welcome to the first issue of Virginia Meetings. Hardly a day goes by in business without some sort of meeting. Business people attend meetings; companies organize and sponsor meetings. Some meetings are large and some are small; some require travel and overnight accommodations.

Great food is always appreciated; occasionally golf, tennis or other recreational amenities are required. Necessary to the whole process is the person who selects the perfect location, which goes a long way toward making a meeting easier for the organizer and memorable for those who attend. With that in mind, what better place to hold a meeting than in Virginia?

For years, Virginia Business included an annual Meeting and Conference Planner guide as part of its October issue. This year, we decided to pull it out, give it a new title and a fresh design, and present it as a separate magazine. Virginia Meetings will still be an annual publication that is delivered to all Virginia Business readers — they are, after all, the best audience in the commonwealth for anything related to meetings.

With the assistance of Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association President Eric Terry, Virginia Business staff members selected the 2019 Virginia Business Meeting Professional of the Year, Diane Malloy, the founder and principal of Convention Connections Inc. She has planned conferences across the country and in Canada and Mexico, including the wildly popular CrimeCon in New Orleans, which drew 3,500 people, and closer to home, the VA-1 Tourism Summit.

Click here for more on Malloy, as well as a full list of the other nominees, all of whom are doing an outstanding job of making meetings special for companies and other organizations.
We hope you will enjoy this issue of Virginia Meetings and use it as a starting point and handy reference for planning your next meeting. As the saying goes, “Business is all about relationships,” and what better way to foster them than by holding your meeting at the perfect location? Hope to see you there!

Bernie Niemeier
President & publisher
[email protected]

CONTENTS

• Virginia Business Meeting Professional of the Year
• 2019 Virginia Meeting Professional of the Year nominators
• Virginia Business Meeting Professional of the Year nominees
• Top 10 hotels with most meeting space 
• Hotel conference venues by region 
• Virginia’s largest convention spaces 
• Old Dominion diversions Virginia offers many must-see attractions for convention-goers by Dina Weinstein 
• Basic to boutique New and renovated hotels dot the state’s landscape by Dina Weinstein and Kate Andrews 

ADVERTISERS

• Virginia Tourism Corp.
• Norfolk 
• VRLTA 
• Featured venues 
• Alexandria
• Colonial Williamsburg
• Gold Key/PHR 
• Lynchburg 
• Martinair 
• Omni Resorts/The Homestead 
• Primland 
• The Main
• Visit Virginia's Blue Ridge