With more than 3,500 members of the National Tour Association in Salt Lake City for a week, it is not only the city's biggest convention of the year - worth an estimated $4 million - but it may result in far more tourist business in the future.
The NTA delegates are people who operate or have some voice in running group travel tours or are in associated fields such as the hotel and restaurant business. The NTA is easily the largest tour travel association in the country.The Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau is going all out to make sure the delegates have a memorable and pleasant experience and to present the city and surrounding areas in the best possible light.
The conventiongoers are given a loose-leaf binder crammed with information on hotels, restaurants, private clubs, calendars of events, dozens of maps and other useful material. The week's events, centered in the Salt Palace, include activities, seminars, trips, social times, and post-convention tours to other parts of Utah.
All of this is based on the premise that if those attending the NTA convention have an interesting and enjoyable time, they will favorably consider the Salt Lake area as a site for their own group tours. The experiences in other cities that have hosted the NTA event bear out this idea. In other words, this is the kind of personal exposure that advertising money could not begin to buy.
The Deseret News offers a warm welcome to the NTA visitors and urges all Salt Lake residents to give the convention delegates a friendly Utah greeting and go out of their way to be helpful. But then that's the sort of thing we should do for all visitors.