photo by: Nick Krug

Michael Davidson, the new director of Explore Lawrence, comes to Lawrence from Newark, N.J., where he served as executive director of the Greater Newark Convention & Visitors Bureau. Davidson is pictured outside the Lawrence Public Library on Thursday, June 9, 2016.

In the two months he’s been on the job, new Explore Lawrence Director Michael Davidson has determined a few things about the city.

Mostly, he said, it has soul.

“These are the jobs I live for; I like to go to a destination that, first of all, is authentic,” Davidson said. “I like destinations that have soul to it. This one has that.”

Davidson stopped by Lawrence Arts Center one night to catch a lecture and stumbled into a group of folk musicians playing in the lobby afterward. He visited Rock Chalk Park during the NCAA track and field preliminaries, and he’s seen the lineup of live music, surprised at the number of shows every week.

Also, the New York native noted he can drive a car around without people honking at him.

It’s all very laid-back, he said. It’s “quirky.” It’s unmistakably Lawrence — a message he plans to share as far as Chicago and New York to attract future visitors (and dollars) to the city.

“What I think our organization is capable of doing with the staff we have is we can really begin to — not change the conversation about Lawrence, there’s no need for that — but to turn up the volume,” he said.

The city may be laid-back, but Davidson wants to “be very aggressive” in Explore Lawrence’s mission. And he’s going about it from a few different angles.

First, he wants to push the “unmistakably Lawrence” message as much as possible, until it’s a citywide movement.

While leading the convention and visitors bureau in Walla Walla, Wash. in the early 2000s, Davidson started the development of its slogan, “Walla Walla, Surprise, Surprise.” Later, in Newark, N.J., he helped push the message, “Newark Happening.” At one of his first tourism jobs, in Long Island, the organization pasted the “I Love NY” icon on everything they did, he said.

Like all the others, “unmistakably Lawrence” has potential, Davidson said. He saw that with a recent entry into The Toy Store’s yet-to-be-decided Lego contest. A couple of participants created downtown Lawrence, complete with a Jayhawk, distinct storefronts and the “unmistakably Lawrence” logo rising above it all.

Davidson shared a photo of the design Monday on Explore Lawrence’s social media.

“The response to the Lego design just exploded. It was just so cool,” Davidson said. “It was also cool that they just adopted the brand, which we’re very excited about. That brand is going to permeate through the community.”

He thinks Explore Lawrence could be doing more to show off Lawrence’s “assets:” places, events, such as Final Fridays, plus just “quirky” facts.

“Our organization, we talk about everything that’s great and in the global perspective,” Davidson said. “We’re not just focused on making sure people go to the Lawrence Arts Center or Liberty Hall or Watkins (Museum); we’re interested in bringing them to Lawrence.”

It’s also important, he said, that Lawrence attracts more conventions and meetings during the week. The city has average hotel occupancy in the 60 percent range, and having it in the 70s would make it “really strong,” he said. The weak times for hotel occupancy now are Sunday through Thursday.

To start on these efforts, Davidson is “talking to everybody I can,” making connections with local artists and business owners, trying to figure out how Explore Lawrence can help. He brought on a new director of communications and marketing at the end of May.

Also last month, Explore Lawrence’s board of directors, at Davidson’s suggestion, voted to initiate an $8,000 study and workshop through an organization called DestinationNEXT.

The group provides strategies to destination management organizations to help them determine methods for increasing tourism. The effort will start in July or August with a survey of 100 Lawrence restaurateurs, retail owners, hotel managers and past visitors.

“Usually it’s interesting, what other people think about you is much different than what you think about yourself,” Davidson said. “It’s going to give us an opportunity to assess the strengths of the organization and also the weaknesses of how it functions.”

“It will assess the destination, the operations of Explore Lawrence and give us a roadmap to the future.”

One known weakness, he said, is that Explore Lawrence’s purpose is not well understood in the community. Some understanding may have been lost during Explore Lawrence’s split from Destination Management Inc. and the name change from the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, he explained.

“A CVB needs to be accepted in the community for what we do, and I’m not sure we’ve done the best job of explaining it. Our focus is fuzzy,” Davidson said. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not fuzzy.”

“Explore Lawrence” represents the organization’s mission, Davidson said. “Unmistakably Lawrence — that’s our message.”