Executive Director, eXplore Lawrence
| 2019 Q2 | photo by Steven Hertzog
Michael Davidson
What is your organization’s most importance important commodity or service?
eXplore Lawrence (EL) serves as the destination management organization (DMO), bringing together diverse community stakeholders from local government to trade and civic associations to individual businesses to attract visitors to Lawrence and Douglas County.
By creating a tourism brand for the community, and all our local tourism tourism-related entities, we strive to get our destination into the public’s consciousness, creating an awareness of and demand for our local tourism products.
What is your organization’s most important priority?
We see our role as the lead organization responsible for driving economic development through tourism. Our focus is to increase business, leisure, and sporting-related travel, which benefits the community in terms of visiting spending, state and local taxes, and job creation. We also believe that tourism creates a sense of local pride for Lawrencians.
What has been some of the most important aspects of your success?
eXplore Lawrence has moved beyond the traditional role of a sales and marketing organization to taking take a more holistic approach to enhancing the visitors’ experience. This includes creating marketing campaigns that are data driven and delivering a significant return on investment, as well as investing in the newest technologies.
We track six (6) key performance indicators, including:
• Hotel Revenue
• Transient Guest Tax Revenue
• Website Visits
• Social Media Impressions
• Hotel Leads and Bookings
• Stakeholders /Contacts
How many people does eXplore Lawrence employ? Serve, interact with on a daily basis, and are responsible to?
eXplore Lawrence has a staff of six (6) full-time and two (2) part-time employees. El focuses on four activities
• Marketing and Communications
• Sales
• Visitors Services
• Community Engagement
How do you and your organization make a positive impact on the Lawrence Community?
The 265-million local tourism industry supports 2,853 jobs while generating $25.3 million in state and local taxes. The Transient Guest Tax supports such local initiatives as:
• Downtown Beautification Projects
• The Transient Guest Tax Grant Program (A $150,000 grant program that supports local events)
• Sister Cities Program
• Downtown Master Plan
What is do you see as your personal responsibility and your organization’s responsibility to the community?
On a personal level, I have always strived to be a person of integrity and honor. Since arriving in Lawrence in 2016, I have joined the boards of the local chapter of the American Red Cross and Theatre Lawrence.
For EL, we want to be recognized as the premier visitor and convention destination in the state of Kansas by fostering partnerships amongst area tourism facilities and businesses contributing positively to the local economy and environment.
What would you change about doing business (or working with businesses) in Lawrence?
As part of our role as the local DMO, I would like to see us do more in the area of product development to create more reasons for people to visit Lawrence. To achieve this, we need to continue to think outside the box to encourage the creativity of local stakeholders.
As an example, by partnering with the Watkins Museum, we were able to develop two new historical exhibits at our Visitors Center. The newest exhibit focuses on the 1937 National Corn Husking Contest, held in North Lawrence.
Why did you become involved; What inspired you?
As a young child, I discovered the concept of tzedakah, which is the Hebrew word for philanthropy and charity. It is a form of social justice in which donors benefit from giving as much or more than the recipients.
Following tzedakah has led me to supporting a wide range of social issues. I am proud to be a regular blood donor, and most I have become a sustaining member of RIP medical debt, a 501(c) (3) charity that has eliminated $635 million in medical debt for nearly 200,000 Americans.
What is the biggest challenge you feel eXplore Lawrence faces?
Moving forward, there are two issues—o one local and one industry wide— that keeps me up at night.
With well over 90% of our funding coming from the local TGT, how do we keep the tourism dollars flowing into Lawrence?
On an industry wide issue, the continued Weaponization of Travel, the effect of discriminatory legislation has on health of the local tourism efforts.
What do you forces foresee as being the biggest challenge for the future of eXplore Lawrence? And how are you addressing or preparing for it?
EL, as well as the tourism industry in general, have been turned upside down by ever ever-changing technologies as well as sharing economic platforms. For example: consumer Consumer-generated content (CGC) photos has have proven to be a valuable tool for destinations to showcase the visitor experience. Recent changes in privacy rules by companies such a Twitter and Instagram has have hampered our ability to access these images.
The sharing economic platforms (e.g. Airbnb and Uber) has have increased downward pressure on the profitability and continued viability of the hotel and taxi industries.
