A draft summary from the Office of the City Auditor finds that the city’s convention center needs to improve its internal communication and tracking of deliverables related to its annual contract with the city of Austin. The complete audit is expected to be finished this week in advance of Monday’s meeting of City Council’s Audit […]
Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau
Now renamed “Visit Austin,” this group is charged with promoting Austin as a travel destination.
Posted inBudget
Council OKs reduced budget for Visit Austin
Visit Austin, formerly known as the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau, will no longer be paying for alcohol to entertain would-be Austin conventioneers with city Hotel Occupancy Tax collections. The group promised the mayor and City Council that in the future it would only use private funds for alcohol purchases. In addition, Visit Austin will […]
Posted inAustin
Council voices concerns over Visit Austin spending on alcohol, events
A report that the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau (known as Visit Austin) has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on jewelry, alcohol and meals at fancy restaurants prompted City Council to delay approval of the nonprofit agency’s marketing plan and budget. Council Member Leslie Pool, citing “significant questions about the spending of taxpayer […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Look at all these rumors
Film Commission rumor not confirmed… Louis Black, who is retiring as publisher of the Austin Chronicle, emailed City Council last week claiming that the recent vote to allocate a portion of the city’s Hotel Occupancy Tax from Visit Austin (previously known as the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau) “to fund operations and maintenance of city […]
Posted inAustin
Visit Austin contract included lobbying Council
When the CEO for the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, recently renamed Visit Austin, signed his employment contract with the organization last May, the contract included an addendum directing him to develop a strategy for lobbying City Council to enlarge the Austin Convention Center. According to an addendum to Visit Austin CEO Tom Noonan’s contract, he […]
Posted inCourts
Updated: Visit Austin provides some data, withholds some
The Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, now operating as Visit Austin, released to the Austin Monitor on Wednesday a list of its 50 highest-paid employees, by job title and salary, not by name, as well as a compilation of the convention business the group says the convention center has lost since 2015 because of lack […]
Posted inAustin
Task force endorses plan to expand convention center
After nearly six months of toil, a visibly exhausted Visitor Impact Task Force granted its imprimatur to a proposal to fund the expansion of the Austin Convention Center, albeit with a number of attached recommendations. Tuesday’s vote came at the end of a nearly five-hour meeting held on the 17th floor of the Hyatt Regency […]
Posted inCourts
Bunch sues Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau
Austin activist Bill Bunch filed suit after hours Monday against the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau (which on April 28 filed an assumed name certificate allowing it to operate under the name Visit Austin) for refusing to disclose the salaries of its 50 highest-paid employees, its contract with the ACVB president and a report commissioned by the […]