Detroit, MI – MAY 12, 2017 – Tourism Cares—the philanthropic community of the tourism industry—kicked off the signature event in their Tourism Cares for Our Cities series today, teaming volunteers with local partners to improve the Detroit experience for locals and visitors alike.

“We are honored that Tourism Cares chose Detroit as one of this year's host cities,” said Larry Alexander, president & CEO of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We value the hundreds of tourism professionals that are here in our city making a difference throughout the community.”

Detroit is known as the “come back city” with a diverse culinary and music scene, renowned art and rich architecture. In addition to direct impact on the ground, Tourism Cares for Our Cities showcases destinations to an influential national audience.

Volunteers worked at various sites today:

• Some helped at the Georgia Street Community Collective Garden, building fencing around the animal pens, painting and clearing debris, building a chicken coop and other tasks to prep the garden for planting season.
• Additional farming work was done at the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative where volunteers cleaned beds and preserved last year's plants.
• A group made landscape improvements to Lafayette Entrance Park to make it more welcoming to pedestrians and bicyclists.
• Volunteers on Belle Isle worked in the garden at the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory preparing the grounds and beds for the upcoming planting season and grand prix event.
• Some channeled their inner artists with the Detroit Bus Company and transformed one of the buses in their fleet with paint, while others worked with a local graffiti artist on a mural along the city streets.
• A small group spent the day at Pasteur Elementary as part of a youth enrichment program for kids to learn from professionals across the country.

“Volunteers are very important to further our work,” said Mark Covington, founder of the Georgia Street Community Collective Garden. “We don't get funding from the larger foundations in our area so we can't afford to hire the staff we need to do all the things we try to get done. 95% of our yearly funding comes from private donations.”

Tourism Cares also engaged the Detroit community to leverage the knowledge of travel professionals through skilled volunteering. Mike Geraci of MERCURYcsc and Jeanne Chapel from Amadeus presented marketing and branding  tips and target audience research to a group of mission based travel professionals at a breakfast workshop yesterday. After the workshop, local organizations were paired with volunteers for additional pro bono consulting.

Tourism Cares for Detroit is made possible by AIG Travel, Delta Air Lines, Double Tree Suites by Hilton Detroit Downtown – Fort Shelby, Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, Abercrombie & Kent, Allianz Global Assistance, ASTA, Booking.com, Enterprise Holdings, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Motor City Travel, Norwegian Cruise Line, Signature Travel Network, The Travel Corporation, Trip Mate, MERCURYcsc, Hard Rock Café, and Aon Affinity I Travel Practice.

 Tourism Cares is focusing on City Tourism in 2017 in keeping with the UN World Tourism Organization's (UNWTO) recognition of city tourism as a critical force in sustainable development and livability. This is the signature event in the series, which began in Oakland in March and continues in Providence in September and Toronto in October. To learn more, visit www.tourismcares.org/cities.
 
About Tourism Cares

Tourism Cares, Inc., a US 501(c)(3) public charity, maximizes travel's potential to be a global force for good by leveraging the care that travelers and the industry feel for the places we love.  We unite the travel industry to make a greater impact on shared priorities, and to help each company fulfill its giving goals. Together, with leading travel and tourism companies and associations, we make a greater difference on three shared issues: helping destinations in need, supporting our workforce, and improving our corporate social responsibility. Learn more at www.TourismCares.org and @TourismCares.

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