Innovative Partnership between Travel Salem and Willamette Valley Vineyards Brings Tasting Room and Retail Outlet to the Travel Cafe
Through a ground-breaking partnership with Willamette Valley Vineyards (WVV), Travel Salem’s award-winning Travel Café Visitors Center now offers visitors and local consumers the opportunity to taste the "Fruit of the Vine." Travel Salem has partnered with WVV to create a tasting room and retail outlet for their high-quality, sustainable wines at the Travel Café (click for Travel Salem Visitor Center information and map). In addition, Travel Salem’s conference room has been named the "Willamette Room" sponsored by WVV.
This unique partnership between a winery/vineyard and a tourism agency will allow
visitors to experience wine from one of Oregon's oldest and most sustainable wineries, and
pique their interest to learn more about WVV and the region’s rich wine country. This new
concept will ultimately lead to an increased regional economic impact from tourism.
"Willamette Valley Vineyards is proud to be partnering with Travel Salem's revolutionary
Travel Café," says Jim Bernau, founder and president of WVV. "This new downtown
facility is one of the major touch points for visitors to the Salem area. Offering tastes of
wine at this location will grow visitor interest in the Oregon wine industry — one of our
region’s most valuable assets — and help make lifelong Salem area customers of some of
these visitors."
"Part of the original vision for the Travel Café, this innovative partnership provides yet another reason for visitors to make the Salem area a stop on their journey," explained Travel Salem President and CEO Angie Morris. "By serving as a mini-attraction, the Travel Café seeks to give visitors a taste of what the region has to offer. We wanted a partner that exemplified the best of the tourism industry – innovation, sustainability and an internationally recognized brand. We got all of that and more with Willamette Valley Vineyards.
Travel Salem and WVV launched this partnership by kicking off their shoes at the Mini
Grape Stomp event held at the Travel Café on September 16, 2009. Bernau and Morris
teamed up and went toe-to-toe against Ray Burstedt, president of SEDCOR and Austin
McGuigan, community development director of Polk County - in a grape stomping
competition right outside the Travel Café. The stomping of Morris and the swabbing of
Bernau propelled the Travel Salem/ WVV grape stomping team to an easy victory.
This partnership expands on Travel Salem's commitment to reinvent the way a community
connects with visitors and local consumers. The Travel Café offers Garmin GPS units preprogrammed
with Salem area tours, AbsolutelyTix ticketing network, Wi-Fi access,
plasma screens with ads and scrolling events, and now wine-tasting with WVV. The Travel
Café is becoming an attraction in and of itself!
Wine-tasting will be available Monday-Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. at the Travel Café located at 181 High St. NE, Salem. Eight distinctive wines will be featured; offering something for every palate. The wines will be served using a state-of-the-art Enomatic wine serving system. Visitors and local consumers can purchase four tastes for $6.00, which will include a one-of-a-kind Riedel wine glass. Bottles of WVV wines are also available for purchase.
***Travel Salem is a non-profit organization that promotes Salem and Marion and Polk counties for leisure tourism and convention and event business. The local annual economic impact of the greater Salem area visitor industry is $496 million. Travel Salem manages the Official Salem Area Travel Café/Visitors Center located at the historic Grand Hotel building (181 High St. NE, Salem), two I-5 satellite visitor information locations located at the Best Western Mill Creek Inn (3125 Ryan Dr. SE) and the Red Lion Hotel (3301 Market St. NE), and the Official Salem Area Website www.TravelSalem.com***