eXplore Lawrence establishes board, working to hire new director

Explore Lawrence

Lawrence’s convention and visitors bureau, now operating as its own entity and renamed eXplore Lawrence, has assembled its governing board and is in the process of hiring an executive director.

The seven-member governing board interviewed candidates through teleconference Dec. 8. Members will meet in January to discuss when they’ll hold another round of interviews and when a new director will be selected.

The director will lead the effort to bring tourists, events and conferences to Lawrence — anything that helps boost the city’s transient sales tax revenue, said Megan Gilliland, a city spokesman who has been serving as interim director.

One event the new director will work to coordinate is the 2017 USA Track & Field Junior Olympics. It was announced earlier this month that the event would bring about 9,500 athletes and 33,000 spectators to Rock Chalk Park.

“Ultimately, it all kind of coalesces into that strong visitor experience and making sure people enjoy visiting Lawrence, consider a repeat visit back to Lawrence and consider holding meetings and events here in our facilities,” Gilliland said of the job. “All of that ties together into what eXplore Lawrence does.”

The city’s convention and visitors bureau became its own organization in September and broke away from Destination Management Inc., a nonprofit group that had managed both it and Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area since 2008.

Gilliland said the split would allow eXplore Lawrence to focus solely on growing Lawrence’s tourism industry. Three months after the separation, both eXplore Lawrence and Freedom’s Frontier are “very focused on their own missions,” she said.

Jim Ogle, former manger of Topeka television station WIBW-TV was named the new executive director of Freedom’s Frontier in November. That organization promotes tourism in 41 counties in eastern Kansas and western Missouri — sites of struggle during the Civil War.

eXplore Lawrence will have an agreement next year with the city, stating that though it’s a separate entity, the organization is carrying out the city’s tourism and marketing responsibilities.

The city budgeted $880,000 to go to eXplore Lawrence in 2016.

The Lawrence City Commission voted in November to appoint eXplore Lawrence’s member governing board, which will set the vision and goals for the organization.

Its members are: Nancy Longhurst, general manager of The Eldridge; Derek Felch, general manager of The Hampton Inn; City Commissioner Stuart Boley; Charlie Persinger, Kansas University’s director of ceremonies and special events; Derek Kwan, executive director of the Lied Center; Doug Banks, associate athletics director for Kansas Athletics; and Mike Logan, owner of The Granada and Abe & Jake’s Landing.

Longhurst was elected as the board’s chairman.

It’s unsure when a director of eXplore Lawrence would be named, Gilliland said.

The bureau’s governing board did a national search for candidates. The new director is expected to have strong sales, marketing, event-planning and community-relations abilities.

Besides the Junior Olympics, another project the director will work on is eXplore Lawrence’s “Unmistakably Lawrence” campaign, which started in April.

Gilliland said the bureau wants to have a marketing push on the “Unmistakably Lawrence” brand in 2016.

“We want to capitalize on that and get it out there so people can start to relate that unmistakable and unforgettable experience you can have here in Lawrence, right in the middle of the country,” Gilliland said. “We want to play up that aspect of it.”