Larry Woods is stepping down as director of Visit Boerne, the city’s destination marketing department, officials announced.
Woods is retiring at the end of the month after 17 years.
When he started, the department was known as the Boerne Convention and Visitors Bureau and was in the historic Menger- Shumard house at the end of the Walmart parking lot. In 2019, the team relocated to the heart of the Hill Country Mile into the Visitors Center at 282 Main St. — built debt-free after years of strategic planning and saving, officials said.
In 2022 the department was renamed Visit Boerne.
“We get to advertise and sell a great product, which is the city of Boerne,” Woods said.
The department is funded entirely by hotel-occupancy tax revenue.
In turn, the sales-tax revenue from the millions of dollars spent at Boerne businesses helps the city buy more fire trucks, hire more police officers, invest in parks and enhance the quality of life for its residents, officials with Visit Boerne said.
“We take good care of not only the tourists, but everybody in Boerne,” Woods said.
Visit Boerne showcases hundreds of restaurants, shops and businesses that might not otherwise have the bandwidth to reach an audience that stretches as far as Europe and Asia, city officials said.
Woods’ team combs through a trove of data and analytics and builds its marketing strategy months in advance.
WOODS
Woods said the greatest challenge is forecasting what the economy and the state of travel will look like down the road.
Even in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the team under Woods had a plan to keep visitors coming to Boerne, officials said.
The team scrapped some advertising campaigns and instead targeted apprehensive travelers who generally just wanted to stay local or in the region, according to officials.
Figures show at a time when most cities were running at 10-20 percent hotel occupancy, Boerne remained steady at 43 percent.
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