Visit West Hollywood, the visitor and travel promotion organization that has been around almost as long as the City of West Hollywood itself, is undergoing a transition.
Greg Harless, chair of the Visit WeHo board, said the death of Brad Burlingame in December has spurred the board to take another look at the organization. Burlingame had been with the organization from the beginning and has been widely credited with its success.
The organization and its efforts to promote West Hollywood nationally and globally have been credited for the city’s position as a major travel destination. One result has been the growth of the hotel business, whose room occupancy taxes are the single greatest source of revenue for the city.
Among the recent changes are the departures of two senior executives hired by Burlingame last summer. Alex Stettinski had served as vice president of operations and strategic planning and Jonathan Mattis as vice president of marketing and sales.
Harless said the elimination of their positions had nothing to do with Stettinski and Mattis but was part of a decision to flatten the organization’s structure to improve its performance. “We are trying to make ourselves the most effective marketing organization,” he said.
Harless said Visit WeHo also is looking for an executive recruitment firm to do a nationwide search for someone to fill Burlingame’s CEO position.
We should consider making history now, the Visit WeHo corporation should transform itself into an Employee owned Co-operative Group! Such a bold move is not only consistent with West Hollywood’s well established history of Social Justice but, it’s likely to attract a great deal of business from like minded people all over the country. Genuine Employee owned Co-operative Groups (including many companies with aspects of them) have done quite well in competing against the corporation, to such an extent that dirty tricks have been implored against them by extreme right-wing interests. The first objection cited in opposition to forming a… Read more »