CONNECTING OUR COMMUNITY
This year , Visit Baltimore continued to advance our core value of ensuring collaboration by creating spaces for members of the hospitality , small business and creative communities to build connections and share ideas .
With the support of select venue and catering partners , the partnership department hosted three CONNECT events in FY24 for our Destination Partners :
Investing in the Future of Tourism
As part of Visit Baltimore ’ s mission to advocate for the local tourism community , we often participate in events to demonstrate what our industry has to offer to students for future career paths . This year , two of those events were the 3rd Annual Baltimore CTE Food , Beverage & Baking Competition and the iMentor Career Exploration Mixer .
The CTE competition took place at the Baltimore Convention Center ( BCC ) with three student culinary teams from Carver High School , Forest Park High School and Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School showing off their skills . The competition was judged by chefs from the BCC , Sodexo Live and Codetta Bake Shop who crowned Forest Park the winners .
Additional students from all five schools that offer culinary and hospitality pathways ( including National Academy Foundation and Edmonson Westside High School ) enjoyed an immersive career exploration event where they had a tour of the BCC , learned about social media from Visit Baltimore ’ s social media manager , had media training from Root Branch Media and Wanda Draper and had mini breakout sessions with industry experts .
Visit Baltimore partnered with the Baltimore Tourism Association and iMentor , which works with Baltimore City Public Schools to increase college graduation rates for first-generation students from low-income neighborhoods , to host the career exploration mixer . Forty students from Baltimore Design School and the Academy for College and Career Exploration took a bus tour of the city and then came back to the Visit Baltimore office to hear from tourism professionals and local entrepreneurs to learn more about our industry and potential career opportunities for the students to consider .
• Summer 2023 onboard the Pride of Baltimore II
• Winter 2023 at Power Plant Live ’ s Leinie Lodge and Beer Garden
• Spring 2024 onboard Watermark ’ s The Raven in celebration of National Travel & Tourism Week
The Visit Baltimore marketing and communications team also hosted two celebratory meetups for the city ’ s artistic community in FY24 . At a holiday mixer at Baltimore Spirits Company , we reflected on the past year ’ s accomplishments while eagerly anticipating future creative pursuits . Then , in the summer , we invited artists , marketers and influencers to kick off the summer events season with us at the Maryland Zoo , where we tried out their new virtual reality experiences and got to know a special guest , animal ambassador Tetra , while building relationships with the creatives in attendance for future collaboration and storytelling .
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