J Magazine Winter 2018

Michael Corrigan has been CEO of Visit Jacksonville for six months. “What visitors do when they are actually in Jacksonville is critical to our future,” he said.
a suit with me. I could have jumped into a
mud puddle and had a picture taken of me
coming out of it with a Visit Jacksonville logo
and a caption that read, ‘We’re not afraid
to get our hands dirty to get you to come to
Jacksonville!’”
Clearly, then, our city can rest assured
that in Corrigan — along with a 22-person
Visit Jacksonville staff that he effusively
praises as “absolutely fantastic, absolutely
great” — we have a creative mind that’s
relentlessly racing with “let’s color outside
the lines” ideas to promote the joys and
delights Jacksonville.
That’s a good thing.
Visit Jacksonville is funded by bed-tax
dollars. The 6 percent levy is placed on all
hotel rooms in Duval County. One-third
of that bed-tax money goes to the Tourist
Development Council of Duval County,
which uses a portion of it to fund Visit
Jacksonville, and requires Visit Jacksonville
to meet a series of performance metrics to
show the funding is being efficiently used
and making an impact in drawing visitors to
the city.
That means the organization must put a
“For right now,
‘JAX: It’s Easier
Here’ is still
trending up and
up for us. It’s
still a massively
effective slogan
for us.”
MICHAEL CORRIGAN
CEO of Visit Jacksonville
high priority on having a focused, disciplined
approach in its efforts to shine a bright light
on Jacksonville’s assets — and turn that light
into a beacon that draws tourists and visitors
into our city.
Indeed, in an interview with the
Jacksonville Business Journal, one of
Corrigan’s key staffers, Visit Jacksonville
vice president of marketing Katie Mitura
listed a multi-point plan of things the
organization is doing to market the city,
including the development of guided audio
tours of Downtown and a cutting-edge Visit
Jacksonville app.
So the work that Visit Jacksonville is
doing really is tireless — and here are some
of Corrigan insights on some of the major
questions regarding that effort:
What are the biggest challenges at work
in promoting Jacksonville as a place to
visit?
Corrigan said “there are a ton of
challenges” in that task, but also myriad
opportunities. “There are three areas of work
we do,” he said.
“We have the convention sales and
BOB SELF
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J MAGAZINE | WINTER 2018-19