by Mondee Tilley Mount Airy News

The Tourism Partnership of Surry County will be the official wine supplier for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships that will be held at the Greensboro Coliseum starting this Saturday and continuing until Jan. 30. Tourism officials are hoping the sponsorship will get the word out about Yadkin Valley wines and lure more tourists to the area.

During VIP events held throughout the figure skating event, Yadkin Valley wines will be served, according to Jessica Icenhour, vice chair of the Tourism Partnership of Surry County. Several local wineries such as Old North State and Shelton Vineyards either donated wine to the partnership for distribution or sold it to them at a much discounted rate, she said.

"We supplied wine from the Yadkin Valley to showcase to visitors coming to this event what type of wine our area has and also what else our area has to offer tourism-wise. It gives us a good opportunity to promote the entire region," said Icenhour.

She said the main draw to the figure skating event are visitors from the Pacific Northwest. She said those visitors will be looking for things to do during the day while they are staying in Greensboro.

"That's why we felt like it was a good opportunity to showcase our area because we get visitors all of the time from Greensboro. We've gotten bus tours up here from some of the religious conventions that they have had. During the ACC tournaments, we get people here who are visiting, so it gives us the opportunity to focus on visitors that are already coming into the area and let them know what they can do when they come back next time. Many people don't even realize that we have wine and that we are Mayberry," said Icenhour.

In addition to the wine sponsorship, there will be a booth set up at the coliseum during the entire event that will offer Very Surry Visitor's Guides. There also will be banners that promote Surry County. Icenhour said it is way for the TPSC to market the region to people who normally wouldn't have come here.

The TPSC made gift baskets filled with everything "Very Surry" like wine openers, tumblers, canvas bags and visitor's guide that will be given to VIP and media at the event that were delivered to Greensboro earlier this week.

Leslie Schlender, chairman of the TPSC board, said it was more economically feasible for the partnership to just become a VIP sponsor.

"Instead of being a sponsor for the whole event and supplying wine for the entire event, which would have been quite difficult, we decided just to do it in the VIP lounge and VIP seating areas for the championship weekend," said Schlender.

She said the kinds of people who attend the U.S. Skating Championship are a desired target market for tourism to Surry County.

"It's a perfect fit. These are the type of people we would like to have come here for our wine area. It's a great way to get the awareness out there that we have high quality wine here and that this is a great wine tourist destination beyond Napa and beyond the Pacific Northwest, there are really good wines to explore in North Carolina, especially in the Yadkin Valley of Surry County," said Schlender.

Icenhour also will be promoting tourism in Surry County during a trip to New York City, N.Y., next week with the North Carolina Division of Tourism.

"We will be doing a media blitz up there. There will be over 50 representatives from North Carolina tourism that will be attending events there and pitching stories about our area to media there," said Icenhour.

She said she will be talking to representatives from the "Today" show, Food Network, Go magazine, American Spa, Cooking Light, the New York Post, Brides magazine, Budget Travel, and those are just a few that have been named, more representatives are being added daily.

Icenhour said while she is there she will be wearing a badge that is a conversation starter. Hers says, "Mayberry to Merlot," and she's ready to tell everyone why this is such a great location to visit and about all there is to do here.

"What we will take away from this trip are contacts that we establish with the media. We will then be able to further pitch them stories from our area and just keep them up to date with our calendar of events and getting the word out about our area."

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.