Northstar Meetings Group and its leading brands, Meetings & Conventions and Successful Meetingstoday announces that the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTmeetings) won the 2021 Gold Stella Award as the Best Convention & Visitors Bureau/Destination Marketing Organization (CVB/DMO) in the Northeast Region of the U.S. CTmeetings is Connecticut’s only statewide sales and marketing organization for meetings, conventions, and sports events.

The Stella Awards are the meeting industry’s highest honor, recognizing hotels, convention centers, conference centers, airlines, cruise lines, DMOs/CVBs and DMCs that consistently deliver quality service and innovation to meeting and event professionals. Northstar will announce this year’s honorees today at 2 p.m. EST during its 2nd Annual Stella Awards Virtual Showcase, visit NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com/Stellas.

“Our Bureau is honored to be recognized with such a prestigious industry award,” explains Robert Murdock, President of the Middletown, Conn.-based Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTmeetings). “Connecticut’s meetings and hospitality industries are ‘open for business’, and our Bureau’s team works with meeting planners and event organizers from across the U.S. to assist them in planning successful experiences here.”

A total of 260 organizations from around the globe are being honored for consistently delivering quality service and innovation to meeting and event professionals. This year, more than 6,000 votes were cast from around the world for the 603 destinations, hotels and service providers nominated in 17 categories across six regions in the United States and worldwide. Winners were selected for achieving overall excellence, superb food and beverage, professionalism of staff, sustainability initiatives, and other critical aspects of the meetings and event experience. The list of winners, finalists and their profiles can be found at NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com/Stellas.

"Congratulations to all of the 2021 Stella Award winners and finalists,” said Loren Edelstein, vice president and content director for Northstar Meetings Group. “All of the honorees truly represent excellence in the meetings and events industry as valued and respected suppliers. We’re delighted to recognize the best of the best once again, especially as the industry recovers from the pandemic. Thank you to this year’s winners for supporting meeting and event professionals so capably during such difficult times.”

Hosted by Shalise DeMott, Northstar vice president of sales, and Edelstein, the Stella Awards Virtual Showcase will also feature Brett Sterenson, president of Hotel Lobbyists, who served as a judge during the Stella Awards. Sterenson will provide perspective on various Stella Award categories and insights on how the winner organizations distinguished themselves from the other nominees. To see the winners of the 2021 Stella Awards and view the Stella Awards Virtual Showcase, visit NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com/Stellas at 2 p.m. or after today. The showcase will be available for on-demand viewing until year-end.

The Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTmeetings) markets all of the state – convention and meeting venues, hotels, attractions, and sports facilities and athletic sites – as a premier destination for international, national, regional, and statewide conferences, conventions, and major sports events. In partnership with Connecticut’s businesses, institutions, nonprofit organizations and their surrounding communities, the Middletown, Conn.-based organization works to generate new and return events, thereby generating increased economic impact for Connecticut’s local regions and tax revenue for the State. For more information, please visit www.CTmeetings.org or call 860-728-6789.

Northstar Meetings Group is the leading B-to-B information and marketing solutions company serving all segments of the business meetings, events, sports and incentives market – including full- and part-time meeting planners, as well as corporate, association, sports and not-for-profit decision-makers, and incentive professionals, facilitating their professional development and achievement of business goals. The company's influential brands – Meetings & Conventions, Successful Meetings, Associations Meetings International, Meetings & Incentive Travel, Meeting News, Incentive and SportsTravel – currently serve over 350,000 active meeting and event planners and incentive professionals, across an integrated suite of data, digital, events and print products. For more information, please visit NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com.