Merry Christmas.

The Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau staff and Board of Directors wish everyone a wonderful Christmas season. We hope you received lots of “presents.”

Another sort of “presence” I’d like to mention is the kind that is there to assist or to promote our area.

Our website at www.austincvb.com has been completely re-designed. Ready for launch after the holidays, you will be able to visit our newly designed site and see Austin’s great attractions and more.

It’s going to be totally user-friendly and will showcase our dining options, lodging facilities, annual events and the attractions like the SPAM Museum and the seasonal nativity house.

Our Community Calendar online feature will allow you to see at a glance which activities are scheduled around Austin. You can also add the activities and events that your group sponsors, just by securing a password through our office.

This one great resource will help you know all that is happening in Austin. We are getting the word out, so we have one source for all the event listings.

So many times, groups and organizations will use one medium to advertise their activities, but not everyone has access to it.

For example, if you are in the Austin Daily Herald’s upcoming events calendar, that’s great, but somebody listening to the radio, for example, may miss it. By having just one source to check out, there is a greater likelihood that more folks will be informed and aware of what is scheduled. You’ll still want to use the Daily Herald calendar, too.

It’s ideal having the calendar on our CVB website, because visitors considering Austin as a destination for a family trip, business meeting, or activity can go to our website. Once there, they are able to view the upcoming calendar of events. Having your event, gala, activity or show listed will make sure that our incoming visitors know about it. It’s a free service.

It’s very easy to use. It takes just a few minutes. Go to our website at www.austincvb.com.

Once there, you will see the options listed. Click “calendar of events.”

There, you’ll see the current month’s calendar, and you have a few choices. You can either click on “view entire month” and get a full-page printout of all of this month’s many activities or you can click on a particular date or dates right on the January calendar and it will bring up the events for that day or days. You can also go to the next month or any upcoming month by simply using the buttons there.

You’ll notice that lots of Austin community organizations are beginning to make full, use of this great tool. Yours should not be left out. We know this can be an awesome resource, please help us. We strive to be a one-stop shop for our visiting groups, and when they can see all the reasons why they should be visiting Austin, it’s good for all of us.

As you know, once visitors are here, they enjoy all of our tremendous attractions, restaurant choices, lodging facilities, sporting venues and more.

Our office also sends out a weekly e-mail to keep people informed. We want to help you promote your events. If you get your events listed there, you can be sure that I am checking it and you may even find your event being featured in this monthly column sometime, or mentioned on my weekly radio shows.

People can only attend the events that they know about. Make sure they know about yours. Should you have questions or need help accessing the Community Calendar, please call our office so we can get you the answers you need. Let’s make this a calendar full of reasons why people should visit Austin and why local folks should attend your event. The website again is www.austincvb.com.

Please check it out after Christmas.