Staff Spotlight
HOUSING & CALL CENTER
Visit Baltimore’ s housing services team, also known as Key Bookings, offers highly trained staff that work to effectively and efficiently manage hotel room blocks and reservations for meetings and conventions. They offer a range of services, audits and reports that provide a one-stop shop for all housing needs whether in Baltimore or in other cities across the US.
In this fiscal year, Key Bookings signed multi-year contracts for future events with five different clients, which will bring in an estimated $ 81,500 in revenue, including National Facilities Management and Technology East 2026 in Charlotte and the 82nd General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Phoenix
PROVIDED SERVICES FOR:
• 36 events
• 18 different cities
PREFERRED HOUSING PROVIDER FOR:
• Visit Houston
• Fort Worth
• Visit Austin – signed for another 3 years in FY25!
• Chattanooga Tourism
• Meet Minneapolis
FIELDING CALLS AND REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION
Our call center works diligently to answer phone calls and questions to the Visit Baltimore hotline about anything from travel recommendations to material requests.
FY25 Year in Review: Reservations Booked: 49,765 Inquiries Fielded: 23,704 Visitor Guides Requested: 4,716
Staff Spotlight
• Director of Diversity and National Sales Laurie Nelson-Choice, CGMP received the 2025 Groundbreaker Award at this year’ s PCMA Visionary Awards in recognition of her commitment to advancing inclusion and equity within the business events community.
• On stepping down as President & CEO, Al Hutchinson received the 2025 Destination Organization Leadership Award from Destinations International.
• Senior National Sales Manager Jen Wingate was named to Destinations International’ s 2025 30 Under 30 class.
• Donald Lilley, Director of Technology and Business Intelligence, was named one of Informa’ s Emerging Tourism Stars during the 2025 eTourism Summit. Don also spoke on panels at Connect Marketplace, the Destinations International Business Operations Summit and the Placer. ai Maryland Meetup.
Visit Baltimore staff showed up in a big way at Destinations International!
• Katrina Sungail, Marketing Manager for Meetings and Conventions, represented Visit Baltimore on the panel“ Uncharted Marketing: Bold Strategies for DMOs on Any Budget,” speaking on the success of our award-winning crab feast activations at ASAE.
• Senior Director of Government & Community Affairs Mia Blom announced this year’ s HBCU scholarship recipients, a program created by Al Hutchinson when he was the Chair of the Destinations International Board of Directors.
• Former President & CEO Al Hutchinson, Interim President & CEO Kireem Swinton, PR & Communications Manager Tracey Johnson and Christopher Allen of ROOST Baltimore formed a breakout session panel about how Visit Baltimore’ s Warm Welcome program sets the standard for inclusive tourism.
WELCOMING GUESTS AT THE VISITOR CENTER
Staff continued to work hard to ensure the thousands of visitors who walked through the door of the Visitor Center in FY25 had an enjoyable and welcoming experience.
In addition to displaying art and memorabilia from partner attractions, such as the Sankofa Children’ s Museum and the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, the Visitor Center hosted several events this year. We hosted the Baltimore Tourism Association’ s Christmas Meeting and helped raise $ 450 for Kennedy Krieger’ s Festival of Trees in December as well as June’ s CIAA Press Conference. In FY25, the Visitor Center generated more than $ 36 thousand in sales revenue from the gift shop.
GENERAL OPERATIONS 31