GREAT BEND CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU
The Great Bend Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) is located inside the front of the Great Bend Events Center at 3111 10th Street. The office is perfectly located with the Events Center because CVB staff books and bids on big events and conventions for the Events Center and Great Bend in general. The Events Center is designated as a Kansas Travel Information Center which partners with State Travel & Tourism which is a resource for the State of Kansas tourism opportunities. Since 2019, major renovations have been a goal for the Great Bend Events Center. In 2021, the City officially opened the newly renovated back area as breakout rooms, extra office space and it now is the home of the Great Bend Economic Development (a separate entity working to better Great Bend). The next goal is to completely update the front bathrooms. The CVB is part of Community Coordinator/CVB Director Christina Hayes’ department. CVB staff includes Emily Goad, Visitor Coordinator and Missy Pflughoeft, Visitor Representative. The CVB is 100% funded by Transient Guest Tax from hotel stays and 1% of that Guest Tax helps fund the Events Center along with revenue from events. The Great Bend City Council still strives to make the Events Center a premier event location for our area to improve the quality of life of residents! Larami Parsons, Administrative Assistant is another staff member that is located down at City Hall. The staff works hard to promote Great Bend in various ways. Christina’s goals for her department include getting Great Bend’s attractions, events, fun things to do and places to stay out to a bigger area of the state, Recruitment of new conventions, tournaments and meetings to town. Continue to provide hospitality program for hotels, gas stations, businesses and doctors’ offices so the front lines of our community know what’s happening in town. Every two years the CVB will design and distribute a new Visitor Guide for Great Bend, get our community’s name out there as a real presence in the state, effectively market and promote the Events Center as the premier location for Events and work with the area to bring people to our wonderful town!
CVB Board Members Chairperson: Allene Owen, Vice Chair: Mark Mingenback Members: Wally Eldridge Lacey Scholfield Jan Westfall Jolene Biggs Kyle Walters Claudia Elsen Loren Unruh Cory & Katie Zimmerman Diann Henderson Curtis Wolf Non-voting members: Mayor Cody Schmidt Kendal Francis Megan Barfield Sara Hayden Shawna Schafer Christina Hayes
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