CONWAY, Ark.—As Hewlett-Packard prepares to build a new customer and technical service center in Conway, the company is trying to convince some of its workers to relocate and the city is doing its part to show off what the community has to offer.

Representatives of the Conway Chamber of Commerce and Conway Development Corp. have traveled to Marlborough, Mass., and Colorado Springs, Colo., to talk with Hewlett-Packard employees considering a move to Conway.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has been offered more than $43 million in incentives from state and local officials. HP plans to employ 1,200 at the center.

“We talked to really a broad range of folks and we got a broad range of questions,” CDC vice-president of government affairs Jamie Gates said. “Some of them had to do with our local economy and the employment prospects for their spouses and families, and some were about very personal issues such as the sports their children play or access to hobbies that they’re used to.”

The Conway contingent addressed groups that didn’t know a lot about the region.

“As you can imagine when you’re talking to several thousand people in New England and Colorado, it’s just a broad range of issues that they’re curious about,” Gates said.

CDC president Brad Lacy said he also heard questions about the community’s diversity and how the city’s alcohol-serving private clubs work. “One question was ‘can I get good Mexican food there?,”’ Lacy said. “I could probably talk all day about the diversity of questions, because it’s such a personal decision with people.

Lacy said the Conway advocates had plenty to work with.

Conway Development Corp. also put together a relocation video, complete with comments from people who moved to Conway because of their jobs.

Another aspect of the trip, Lacy said, were the corporate divisions HP asked Lacy and his team to address. “This division that we worked with on these locations is their server group,” he said. “It is outside sales for the server group and those customers include both public and private sector clients,” he said.