U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has named executives from four convention and visitors bureaus to the 29-member United States Travel and Tourism Advisory Board.

The CVB or destination marketing appointees are: Rossi Ralenkotter, president and chief executive officer, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority; Stephen Perry, president and CEO, New Orleans CVB; George Zimmerman, vice president, Travel Michigan; and Perry John Tenorio, managing director, Marianas Visitors Authority.

Find out which of those four was named chairman of the board.

The earthquake that rocked Chile on Saturday, February 27, did minimal damage to the meetings infrastructure in the capital city of Santiago, according to officials at Turismo Chile, the nation’s tourism marketing bureau.

No major hotels or convention centers in Santiago were damaged by the quake, said Nathalie Pilovetzky, spokeswoman for Turismo Chile. She was not aware of any events in the capital city that were canceled or postponed as a result of the quake. The Santiago International Airport suffered structural damage to the passenger terminal; however, no damage was reported to the runways. The airport is expected to return to its full operating schedule by March 6.

All major hotels in Santiago remain open. Some hotels, including all the Starwood properties in the city, are waiving cancellation fees until March 7 to visitors who can’t make their scheduled trips to Santiago because of the airport closure.

Read more coverage of the earthquake in Chile, including where most of the damage occurred.

SuperComm, one of the largest technology trade shows in the early 2000s, has been canceled for 2010. Citing financial concerns, the two associations that jointly sponsor the event—the United States Telecom Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association—have decided to cancel the show, tentatively scheduled for October in Chicago.

No decisions have been made about the event in 2011, said Anne Veigle, spokeswoman for U.S. Telecom. Read more about the rise and fall of SuperComm.

Whether it's Chicago, Boston, or Phoenix, when the U.S. Green Building Council comes to town for its annual convention, it leaves a green legacy in its wake.

The Greenbuild International Conference and Exposition, the U.S. Green Building Council's annual convention, has been honored as one of the greenest meetings in the country, and its dedication to the environment extends to every vendor and partner. Greenbuild 2009, held November 11-13 in Phoenix, was a great example — from the cleaning-service worker who dived into the dumpster to make sure the recyclables were clean, to the chef who found locally grown produce, to the convention center staff who hired the composting haulers. The 2009 conference also marked a new step for USGBC when it announced minimum green standards for its exhibitors, something unheard of in the meetings industry. Read more about GreenBuild.