Courtesy Gettysburg CVB
The American Bus Association (ABA) announced in September that Gettysburg, Pennsylvania’s Reflections of History Event was named as ABA’s 2013 “No. 1 U.S. Event for Motorcoaches.”
The Gettysburg event will mark the 150th anniversary of the decisive Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. The annual Calgary Stampede was named “The Best Event in Canada.”
The ABA Top 100 Events publication will be distributed to more than 3,500 planners of group travel attending The Group Travel Family’s six conferences and 35 chapter meetings in 2013. ABA and The Group Travel Family are entering into their fourth year of a joint marketing relationship designed to drive group tours to the Top 100 Events.
Under the Group Travel Family banner, the ABA Top 100 publications are hand-delivered to travel planners for banks, boomer groups, churches and the African American group travel. These planners also participate in destination question-and- answer sessions at their respective annual conferences.
“Our travel planners take almost two million people a year on tour and look forward to the new and exciting destinations that ABA provides their groups,” said Joe Cappuzzello, president The Group Travel Family.
Now in its 31st year, “The Top 100 Events” is published as a guide for travel professionals and the general public to use when planning group tours and vacations. Each spring, the Top 100 selection committee, comprising numerous group travel professionals, selects the winners from among hundreds of nominated fairs, festivals, parades, exhibits, theaters and shows based on their broad appeal, accessibility to large groups arriving by motorcoach and other criteria.
This year’s publication includes a new “Events to Watch” feature. This list was created by a panel of ABA member bus and tour operators to highlight events and festivals that were not selected as a Top 100 Event but are great examples of new motorcoach-friendly events that show potential to become future Top 100 Events.
“On behalf of the entire American Bus Association, I would like to congratulate all of those involved in the events selected for the 2013 Top 100 Events in North America,” said ABA president and CEO Peter Pantuso. “The events of Gettysburg in 1863 wrote a new chapter in American history, and ABA is proud it was selected as the No. 1 event in the United States. The national and international image of Calgary is very closely tied to the Stampede, generating more than $225 million for the regional economy.”
“The Top 100 Events for Motorcoaches” will be distributed at all Group Travel Family conferences. More information is available online at
www.buses.org/News-Publications/Top-100.
