Council voted on Oct. 14 to extend Columbus’ contract with Visit Columbus for another five years, approving the destination marketing organization’s role as the city’s official recipient of tourism-related hotel-motel tax proceeds.

Visit Columbus CEO Ashley (last name given in meeting) told the council the organization plans to shift from “status quo” marketing to a data- and research-driven approach, citing new analytics tools and a planned expansion of sales and marketing staff.

“We are not maintaining a status quo,” Ashley said in the council chambers. She outlined upgrades the organization has purchased to better measure visitors’ origins and behaviors, including a tourism-economics platform that blends hotel STR data, short-term-rental analytics and geolocation inputs. The platform will be used to identify high-potential origin markets, measure conversions from marketing campaigns, and report monthly performance.

Key items the CEO described:
- Investment in a “Symphony” tourism-economics platform and AirDNA/STR integration to profile visitation and spending patterns.
- New director-level hires to strengthen sales and marketing capacity for convention and sports business.
- A strategic planning process with town halls and stakeholder engagement to align Visit Columbus priorities with the city’s regional prosperity initiative.

Council discussed the hotel-motel tax structure and neighboring cities’ tourism revenue while voting on the contract. A motion to approve the five-year extension passed by voice vote (ayes). No supplementary funding was approved in the meeting; Ashley said the organization will continue to provide annual budget documents and third-party audits.

Visit Columbus reported steady visitation of roughly 2.07 million visitors in the year referenced by its analysis and estimated visitor economic impact of about $377 million and support for around 4,500 jobs. The CEO said the organization will publish more detailed, monthly analytics and periodically share reports with council.