Stephen Perry, president and CEO of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), has been selected by the Obama Administration to serve on the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board and advise U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Locke and the President on all key matters relating to national travel and tourism policy. He joins Rossi Ralenkotter, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, as one of only two urban destination CEOs in the country to join the Board.
As a member of the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, Perry will provide recommendations and expertise on all matters related to the travel industry, including air transportation, airport security, Homeland Security, visa issues and State Department matters, congressional issues and legislative matters, international marketing, business travel, conventions and meetings and national travel industry advocacy, national regulatory and tax matters among many others.
The nomination is a tremendous honor for New Orleans' hospitality industry, as Perry is one of 29 hospitality industry CEOs appointed to serve on this board. It places him among other tourism luminaries such as David Kong, president and CEO of Best Western International; Richard H. Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines; Chuck Floyd, COO of Global Hyatt; John Sprouls, CEO of Universal Parks and Resorts; Jeremy Jacobs, Sr. chairman and CEO of Delaware North; Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International; Sam Gilliland, president and CEO of Sabre Holdings; Joseph Saunders, chairman and CEO of VISA; and a number of others.
Perry served on the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board in 2008 under the Bush Administration and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, and is one of only two members asked to continue service with the Obama Administration board.
He Perry will ascend to the Chairman of the Board position this summer for Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI), the international governing body of convention and visitor bureaus and continues to serve as an Executive Committee member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Travel Association.
Through Perry's service, New Orleans now has unprecedented representation in national travel and tourism matters. Perry will not only have an opportunity to shape national travel policy, but to advance the cause of New Orleans, its assets, its attractiveness and value as a destination and as a center of best practices, and will afford him routine contact with some of the Crescent City's most important customers and partners. Through his participation on these major panels, the New Orleans brand will be placed front and center in American tourism.
Perry has served as a member of DMAI since 2002, a member of its Board of Directors since summer 2005, and in 2008 was unanimously nominated to become a member of its Executive Committee. After serving as Secretary-Treasurer and Chairman-elect, he will take over as Chairman of the Board of DMAI in July 2010.