DATE: Thursday, September 4, 1997           TAG: 9709040433

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

TOURISM PROFESSIONALS COME CALLING

Travel Adventures envisions bringing dozens of Michigan schoolchildren by bus to explore Hampton Roads.

Wade Bus Lines thinks Nebraska senior citizens would eat up the region's historic and cultural attractions.

And Storer's Personalized Tours sees Californians traveling cross-country to Hampton Roads to experience the region's variety of attractions.

These tour operators, as well as nearly 30 others, are being courted this week by the cities and tourist destinations of Hampton Roads to bring hundreds of new visitors here.

Virginia is among the top five states tour groups like to visit, said Patrick A. McMahon, Virginia Tourism Corp. president.

Williamsburg was the seventh most popular spot for tour group travel; Virginia Beach ranked 20th, ahead of Seattle, Portland and Atlantic City, according to Byways magazine's 1996 national poll. (Branson, Mo., Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Washington, D.C., are the most popular destinations for bus tours or charter groups.)

Tour groups account for about 5 percent of all leisure travel in the state, McMahon said. Tourists traveling with organized groups spend about $500 million a year in Virginia, he added.

In Virginia Beach, group tours generated $8 million to $10 million in spending in 1996. In Norfolk, tour groups spent close to $3 million last year.

The state is looking to expand its group tour industry because it's more lucrative than the typical tourist trade.

Tour group participants are generally retired and have more time and money. Older travelers are attracted to group tours for their security, safety and companionship.

``Group tours have an almost unlimited potential to grow,'' said Patricia Kelly, Norfolk's manager of visitor marketing.

Sponsoring familiarization tours such as this week's ``Catch A Wave to the Virginia Waterfront'' is the best way to build group business, tourism officials said.

``This is a cost-effective way to reach a lot of people,'' McMahon said, who attended the ``Catch A Wave'' kickoff at Nauticus Tuesday night.

For five days, the tour operators will be wined and dined and bused to the area's top tourists spots, including the Virginia Beach resort area, the Virginia Marine Science Museum, the Chrysler Museum, Nauticus, Virginia Air and Space Center, Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Hotels donated rooms, restaurants donated meals, charters donated buses and attractions waived admission fees to show the group a good time.

After just one day, many were wowed.

``This area will be a great destination for Californians,'' said Patricia Storer of Storer's Personalized Tours from Modesto, Calif. ``You have a lot of diversification in a small, concentrated area.''

Susan Reed of Mansun Tours of State College, Pa., already brings youth groups to Hampton Roads and now wants to sell the region to adults.

``I think this would meet and exceed their expectations,'' Reed said.

Natalie Hemingway of Camara Tours in New Bedford, Mass., said she plans on introducing New Englanders to Hampton Roads in a bus tour next September.

Many operators schedule tours in the spring and fall, when crowds are smaller and hotel prices are lower.

The group tour industry is growing in popularity. Last year, tour groups spent $9.6 billion in the United States - an 11.6 percent increase over 1995, according to the National Tour Association.

While group tours are still primarily composed of senior citizens, more families and youth groups are discovering its advantages, tour operators said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

TAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot

HAMPTON ROADS ON DISPLAY

Visiting tour group operators see what Hampton Roads has to offer at

an exposition of the area as a tourist destination at Nauticus on

Tuesday night. Looking at the Mariners' Museum display are Marilyn

Charbonneau, left, Janet Parker and William Duffy.

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