July 2002
Trenton Profile: Sally Lane
Director, Trenton Visitors and Convention Bureau
Q.
What do you do?
The Trenton Visitors and Convention Bureau is a nonprofit agency
set up to help people who want to visit or know about Trenton
and the region. It has two parts: The Visitors Center is a drop-in
site, open 7 days a week, where you can pick up information on
Trenton and the region, the rest of New Jersey, and Bucks, Philadelphia
and nearby Pennsylvania. We get people with a two-hour break from
jury duty, people visiting relatives for three days, whole elementary
school classes, local residents and workers looking for something
to do on the weekend and parents looking to help a child on a
school report.
Besides the people who stop in to pick up literature, we respond
to phone, fax, e-mail and mail requests for information-everything
from 200 packets for a church conference to images of Trenton
for a publication.
The rest of the CVB's work is as a liaison and advocate for tourism
to Trenton. That opens the field to just about anything. So I
get the call when the NJ Film Commission has a hurry-up request
from a studio and needs an all-day city guide tomorrow. Or when
a statewide non-profit, thinking of moving its annual conference
here, decides on a blitz visit by a committee. Sometimes I represent
a city-sponsored event to the state; sometimes it's a corporate
event-like the First Union Classic-that needs help in bringing
together the agencies that will be affected or will take part.
The steady work is as the liaison to the state, regional and county
tourism groups, to media wanting background information or event
information, and to efforts to regionalize the CVB. I spent a
lot of time working with a designer to create a new city map that
we printed a year ago and now I'm putting a lot of effort into
translating that into an interactive web map. In the end, it's
all directed to supporting Trenton and the region's economic growth
through tourism.
Q.
What did you do before that?
I worked in newspapers for just about 20 years, as an editor and
columnist for the local papers. I wrote a weekly column on the
history of Trenton for eight years, which has convinced a lot
of people that I'm the quick answer to any local history question.
I'm not, of course, but I answer the ones I know and send everyone
I can to the Trentoniana collection at the Trenton Public Library,
a wonderful place.
Q.
How has the new Lafayette Yard Marriott Conference Hotel affected
the CVB?
We're getting a lot of referrals from conference bookings at the
hotel, groups who request conference services. Some want a menu
of tours for a morning or afternoon during a multi-day conference;
some want help creating specialized events during their conference,
or Trenton-specific mementoes to give the conferees. We're also
getting walk-ins from the hotel.
Q.
What are some common questions you get at the CVB and the answers
you usually give?
"I
have two hours to kill while my wife/husband is in a meeting,
what's the best thing to see?" "We've lived all our
lives in New Jersey and we've never been to Trenton, so we just
decided to come today and see what there was." "Where's
the best place to eat?" "Can you tell me the address
of the train station/airport?" This is a two-person office
weekdays, with my colleague Alease Colvin here all day, and me
in and out, depending on meetings or tours. We have a part-timer
here Saturdays and Sundays. The second question is one we all
get, particularly on rainy days in the summer, when people jump
in the car and come from the beach. We have some good options
within a couple of blocks to the first two questions, starting
with the Old Barracks across the street, and the State House,
State Museum and State Archives heading west.
We try to sketch the range of possibilities-the potteries exhibit
at Ellarslie, the Battle Monument and Signers' graves for Revolutionary
War buffs, a walk in Mill Hill and down to the Trent House for
people who say they're looking for old houses. Lately we've had
a run of people calling on cell phones as they drive around Chambersburg,
looking for the best tomato pie. You never know. You have to probe
a little to get the right answer-some people are excited to hear
there's Indian food around the corner, some just want the nearest
McDonald's and some call and want the restaurant that will impress
a big client. The ones asking for addresses for the train station
or airport are looking on website maps without success. We just
ask where they're coming from and direct them here.
Q.
What do you think would be the next great thing to happen to Trenton?
Up to the present, we've focused on pieces of the puzzle-getting
the ballpark, the arena, the hotel. With those things in place
and others enhanced, we have to step back and change the focus
to a bigger picture. We need all the government and private entities
that stand to benefit from the region's success to come together
and work consistently to promote the city and region.
