Wesley D. Lipe
Tourism Development Manager
Savannah, GA · (912) 555 0197 · name@example.com · linkedin.com/in/wesleydlipe
Key Qualifications
EXPERIENCE
Eleven years in destination marketing and tourism development
MARKETS
Domestic leisure drive markets, motorcoach and receptive tour operators, meetings and reunions
SPECIALTIES
Campaign planning, travel trade sales, visitor research, partner and stakeholder programs
SYSTEMS
Simpleview customer relationship management, Sojern, Zartico, Google Analytics, Cvent, Smith Travel Research reports
CREDENTIALS
Certified Destination Management Executive, current
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science in tourism management, Georgia Southern University
Executive Summary
Destination marketing manager at a coastal Georgia visitors bureau, responsible for leisure campaigns, travel trade relationships and the research that tells the board whether any of it worked. Eleven years in tourism, and the person who turned a scattered marketing calendar into a measured annual plan.
Signature Achievements
- Grew measured visitor spending attributed to bureau campaigns from nine million dollars to fourteen million dollars over three years on a flat marketing budget.
- Built a shoulder season campaign that lifted county lodging tax collections in October and February by seventeen percent against the prior two year average.
- Signed nineteen new receptive and motorcoach operators into the destination through trade show appointments and hosted familiarization tours.
- Rebuilt the partner program so that one hundred and forty local businesses now co invest in campaigns, adding about two hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year in matched spending.
- Introduced visitor intercept research and mobile location analytics, giving the board its first defensible view of where visitors come from and how long they stay.
- Led the destination response after a hurricane closure, returning visitor volume to prior year levels within one season through a recovery campaign and trade outreach.
Professional Experience
Tourism Development Manager
Coastal Georgia Convention and Visitors Bureau, Savannah, GA 2020 to present
Destination marketing organization funded by lodging tax, covering a county with about four million visitors a year and a marketing budget of three point one million dollars.
- Plan and run leisure campaigns across paid digital, broadcast and content partnerships, working with an agency and two staff.
- Manage the travel trade program, including trade show attendance, operator appointments and hosted familiarization tours.
- Own destination research, reporting visitor volume, spending, lodging performance and campaign attribution to the board each quarter.
- Coordinate with hotels, attractions and the chamber of commerce on cooperative marketing and crisis communication.
Marketing and Partnerships Coordinator
Golden Isles Tourism Alliance, Brunswick, GA 2016 to 2020
Regional alliance promoting four barrier island communities to drive markets across the Southeast.
- Ran the content and social program and grew the destination email audience from nine thousand to forty one thousand subscribers.
- Coordinated the annual visitor guide, working with sixty advertisers and a design agency.
- Supported trade show attendance and managed the itinerary building for visiting journalists and operators.
Visitor Services Specialist
Riverfront Welcome Center, Savannah, GA 2014 to 2016
Walk in welcome center serving about one hundred and eighty thousand visitors a year.
- Advised visitors, sold tour tickets and tracked inquiry data by origin market.
- Trained and scheduled a team of twelve volunteers.
Licensure and Certification
Certified Destination Management Executive, Destinations International
Member, Travel and Tourism Research Association
Member, Southeast Tourism Society
Education
Bachelor of Science in tourism management, Georgia Southern University, 2014
Certified Destination Management Executive program, Destinations International, 2021
Core Skills
Destination campaign planning · Travel trade sales · Familiarization tour hosting · Visitor research and attribution · Cooperative partner programs · Budget management · Board reporting · Simpleview · Zartico · Crisis communication