At the end of May, Travel Oregon announced Todd Davidson’s retirement as CEO of the organization. The tourism agency is now preparing to launch a search for its next leader.
“We are incredibly grateful for Todd’s decades of service to Travel Oregon,” says Lucinda DiNovo, chair of the Oregon Tourism Commission (the agency’s governing board), in a prepared statement. “The responsibility to appoint Travel Oregon’s CEO is one we take seriously, and we appreciate his collaboration over the last year to ensure this timeline of transition provides stability and continuity as we launch our national search for the next executive leader.”
Much of Davidson’s impact at Travel Oregon centers on Oregon workers and supporting the state’s natural ecosystems and cultures. At the beginning of his tenure as CEO, Davidson worked with other industry leaders and the state’s government to create Travel Oregon’s current funding structure to grow employment and employee pay within the state’s tourism industry. He also led Travel Oregon to allocate 30% of its budget for community investments through a regional tourism program and a statewide competitive grants program, both of which helped expand accessible experiences for those with mobility, visual, and hearing disabilities. These programs also helped create and restore bike paths, grow wildfire recovery efforts, and fund DarkSky Oregon programming, among other initiatives.
“It has been the honor of my life to lead Travel Oregon these past 30 years, and as we step into a new strategic plan, I feel it’s time to prepare to pass on this privileged responsibility,” says Davidson. “As I reflect on my tenure, I see how far Oregon’s tourism industry has grown—from having no website and advertising campaigns that were focused on five or six target publications to now contemplating how to incorporate artificial intelligence and running incredibly complex ‘always-on’ advertising. So, as we look ahead, we must strategically consider how what we do over the next two years will affect the next four, six, and 10 years.”
