Tom White touts connections, experience in new role leading Explore Evansville
New Explore Evansville President and CEO Tom White is approaching the agency’s top job with one keyword — growth — in mind for strengthening the city’s portfolio of tourism-related event offerings.
White’s most recent career stop was with Visit Mobile, Alabama’s northernmost Gulf inlet. Drawing connections to the boost in meetings, conventions, and sports tourism that the Southern city of 201,367 has seen, White says Evansville is capable of the same.
“I do feel like we can have some immediate success here but also sustain that growth over the next five, 10 years,” says White, who spent two years as Visit Mobile’s vice president of leisure and convention sales. He started at Explore Evansville on March 3.
White vows to maintain the city’s focus on youth sports tourism and up the ante in supporting the Evansville Regional Sports Commission’s mission to attract high-profile sports events. The city also has room to increase its convention and meeting business, White says. “We have a quality convention center with the Old National Events Plaza, and our Ford Center is incredible,” he says. “Plus, we have meeting spaces throughout the community, and some of them are historic, unique spots.”
How to accomplish that? White explains that it comes down to connecting with event planners, asking what they’re looking for, and selling what Evansville provides. In a market of Evansville’s size, “your dollar goes farther,” White says. “Convention attendees would spend a lot less.”
White brings plenty of tourism industry connections to the River City. Before joining Visit Mobile, he spent more than 20 years in Huntsville, Alabama. Most of that time, he served as director of sales and outreach with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and he also was the marketing director for Yedla Management Company, a Huntsville-based manager of hotels.
Earlier in his career, White worked as a general sales manager for Shoe Carnival, which was founded in Evansville. He was born in Nuremberg, Germany, while his father was stationed there with the U.S. Army. He considers the Savannah, Georgia, area his home.
White succeeded Alexis Berggren, who left in December to become general manager of the Charlotte (North Carolina) Convention Center. “Alexis and the team have done a tremendous job of really paving the foundation of what we’re doing,” White says. “I think I can bring a lot of experience and connections within the sale of tourism and marketing, and we can start a sustained steady growth over the next several years, in all categories.”
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