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COLUMBIANA — A local hotel is bringing bus loads of people into the city to shop and enjoy the downtown.
City Manager Lance Willard said last week during the council meeting that Rose Conrad of the Best Western Plus Das Dutch Haus In and Suites has organized the bus tours for the hotel and incorporated the city’s historic shopping district.
He added that the city’s tourism board and chamber are involved in bringing the buses to the downtown as well, and that the city is encouraging store owners to be open on Mondays if they aren’t already.
The bus loads of about 50 people each visit the downtown on scheduled weekends after first enjoying a live show at the Inn’s dinner theater.
Motorcoach companies visited the Inn over the past weekend for a holiday production of “Las Vegas Live! A Christmas Revue” starring Cleveland singing sensation, Nick Costa, and his live 10-piece orchestra.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Best Western Plus, the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism to help showcase the city. We really appreciate Best Western reaching out to us. Anytime we can get a tour bus to experience Columbiana, it is a good thing,” Willard said. “We were excited that some of the businesses opened on Monday for the bus tour. Carla’s Corner and the Cluttered Corner opened on Monday for lunch to help accommodate the bus coming to town.
“It was great to see it all come together. Best Western has quite a line up over the next year, it will be great for the town.”
The tour buses came from Michigan, Toronto, Oh., Pittsburgh and Cleveland, for a total of nearly 240 visitors.
“Many of the motorcoach visitors who came to our dinner theater also visited our historic downtown to shop, and visited the Joy of Christmas Holiday Light Show,” said Rose Conrad, Best Western’s Group Sales and Theater Administrator, “and everywhere they went, they reported back to me about what a charming, entertaining and friendly town we have.”
She also said that everyone in the city pitched in to welcome the groups this past weekend.
“We really earned our designation as an official Hallmark Christmas town,” she added.
Conrad reaches out to the motorcoach industry on behalf of the Inn’s dinner theater productions and provides tour itineraries to the motorcoach directors she interacts with to include stops before and after each show. “I like to keep them in town as long as I can and let them experience all that our wonderful city has to offer,” she said.
She says she already has over a dozen overnight motorcoach tours and day trips scheduled for next year, with more to come, to attend the various dinner theater shows at the Inn beginning in March and ending in December.
“In addition to being known as the nicest place in America and a Hallmark Christmas town, I think Columbiana should also be known as a city of true hospitality,” she said.
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