Staff from the Rio Grande City Tourism Dept. headed to Austin Texas earlier this week to explore new new developments in tourism strategies and historical preservation at the Real Places 2019 Conference.
Rio Grande City Tourism Director Sara Hernandez, and the Kelsey-Bass Museum Coordinator Belinda Trevino participated in the 3-days long conference which featured several workshops and prominent guest speakers.
Featured speakers at this year's Real Places 2019 Conference included Gene Kranz, legendary leader of the flight team that brought Apollo 13 safely home, noted museum expert Colleen Dilenschneider, bestselling author and speaker Nina Simon, architect and urban planner Curtis Davis, and author and TV personality Brent Hull.
In addition to the regular conference schedule, Real Places 2019 offed special programming and pre-conference workshops for various audiences. The THC’s award-winning Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program presented its annual Texas Courthouse Stewardship Roundtable Discussion for county officials and facilities managers, as well as special technical preservation sessions on maintaining historic buildings. The Friends of the THC offered thier popular development seminar, which was geared toward helping nonprofits build sustainable fundraising programs. The THC also provided training for new Texas Main Street managers and board members, as well as Certified Local Government staff and historic preservation officers. Aligning these training opportunities enables municipal and county representatives to explore the connections between their various stewardship responsibilities and understand how they directly relate to other preservation and heritage tourism efforts.
