GoGoKitty’s Wine Secrets

With the economy on everyone’s mind, President Bush took his last trip overseas to Latin America where he met with the APEC Summit to figure out how to save sinking big businesses. Meanwhile, small businesses in the Tampa, Florida, area are trying to do the same thing.

“Those discussions are very important for the Fortune 500 companies but what we’re talking about here today is the small and medium-sized businesses, the meat and the potatoes,” said Derek Lloyd, President of the Caribbean-American Chamber of Commerce for Bay area. His chamber is one of dozens from around the world that attended the Retailers of the Americas Conference at the Tampa Convention Center.

This is the first year the United States hosted the networking conference. Organizers say they chose the Bay area because of the diverse small business opportunities here.

The idea of the conference is to help American businesses reach out to other small businesses around the world.

The Dollard Family thinks the conference is a great idea. They own the brand new wine bar Avenue Cellars in Westchase.

When they opened their doors for the first time, the economy took a nosedive. “You do have to bring your costs down as much as you can,” said Gale Dollard.

That is tough for a small shop when you ship from overseas, like the dozens of wines at Avenue Cellars that come from around the world: Italy, France, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

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