Dover, DE–Kent County Tourism Corporation, the county’s local Convention & Visitors Bureau, hosted a travel familiarization (FAM) tour of Delaware’s Quaint Villages on June 25-27, 2018. The touring group involved travel writers and professional group tour planners from all over the Mid-Atlantic and as far as Illinois, Boston and North Carolina.
The three- day FAM Tour kicked off with an opening reception at Dover Downs Hotel & Casino with track tours of the Dover International Speedway. On the second day, during lunch, the group received a special welcome from Mayor Christiansen and Councilman Fred Neil at Grey Fox Grille & Public House in the Village of Dover. The group spent the day visiting Delaware’s Quaint Villages’ museums such as Air Mobility Command Museum, Johnson Victrola Museum, Harrington’s Railroad Museum, and Historic Belmont Hall to name a few. One of the highlights from the tour involved a one-of-kind farm to table dinner experience with samples of Delaware’s cuisines using locally fresh ingredients prepared by Chef Ludovic from La Baguette Bakery at Fifer Orchards. The menu included lima beans tapenade on cruffin crostini’s, assorted canape platter of scrapple, and crab cake minis to name a few. The group also sampled an assortment of craft brews, spirits and wines from local Kent County libations. The tour wrapped up in the Village of Milford with a special welcome from Milford’s City Manager, Eric Norenberg where the group took in delightful boutique shops and kayaked along the Mispillion River.
Many local tourism businesses (Dover Downs Hotel & Casino, First State Heritage Park, Home2 Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Holiday Inn Dover Downtown and Hampton Inn) partnered with the CVB to provide lunches and accommodations for the Tour.
FAM Tours are one of the many marketing tools that Kent County Tourism uses to sell the destination to potential visitors with the ultimate goal to increase tour bus business into the area. Kent County Tourism’s goal for the FAM tour is for media and group tour planners to experience what the area has to offer first-hand, so they can better relate information to their readers and clients, in return to book future meetings and tours. The organization plans to hold a similar FAM tour each year in part of their efforts to increase group sales and to promote Delaware’s Quaint Villages as a great destination to visit.
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~ Kent County Tourism Corporation (dba Delaware’s Quaint Villages)
Destination marketing organization for Kent County, Delaware and its incorporated cities and towns. As the primary programmatic arm for Kent County travel and tourism promotion, it leads the Kent County tourism industry to work together to generate visitor spending by developing and implementing comprehensive destination marketing programs. It is a self-governing private not-for-profit 501 © 6 corporation with a Board of Directors.