Visit Austin

What it reported doing in 2024

Destination services provided meeting support on 3,327 accounts. Additionally, destination services conducted 75 site visits and planning meetings. Local businesses received 1,156 supplier referrals and leads. The team also met with 210 local businesses to educate them on working with the convention and meetings market in austin. The austin film commission facilitated 221 production packages, 115 production starts and 1,015 production days fiscal year 2024-25. Convention sales generated 751,811 hotel room nights. Convention center bookings represented 143,793 of those room nights. 3,988 leads were generated representing over 4.39 million room nights.significant bookings include: naspa student affairs administrators in higher education -- march 2031 15,464 total hotel room nights 7,000 attendeesgolf course superintendents association of america -- feb 2030 13,283 total hotel room nights 10,789 attendeesnational black mba -- sept 2032 10,217 total hotel room nights 10,000 attendeesamerican school counselors association -- july 2030 8,941 total hotel room nights 5,000 attendeessociety of interventional radiology -- march 2030 9,008 total hotel room nights 4,000 attendeesmarketing/communications -- in fy24/25, the marketing team led a brand refresh and logo redesign that scaled our creative identity across all digital, advertising, tradeshow and corporate assets to better reflect the destination and enable a more modern, creative brand experience for visit austin. Going into year one of the austin convention center closure, our strategies focused on maximizing immediate impact to drive visitation and visitor spend during this unprecedented time. Fy24/25 paid advertising efforts across domestic and international campaigns delivered 364 million impressions and 145,243 in direct advertising-attributed hotel searches. The integrated campaign included custom content programs, programmatic digital media and paid social. Visit austin launched its first-ever advertising study with smari insights for the summer 2025 campaign, a tourism industry leader in measuring advertising effectiveness and economic impact. This initial wave is meant to establish a baseline understanding of marketing influence for media placed may through september 2025, prior to the implementation of the tpid with year-round support. The initial advertising study revealed a highly successful $374 return on investment for every dollar spent, driving an estimated 400,000 incremental trips, directly influenced by our advertising, translating to nearly $748 million in total ad-influenced visitor spend in austin. The study also revealed our campaign was also highly effective in influencing traveler perception, as recalled exposure to visit austin ads more than doubled the share of travelers who view austin as an excellent or very good travel destination. The team also launched its first-ever dedicated meetings campaign, meet more austin. The video campaign features voice over and music from local austin-based musicians, thebrosfresh.our website, visitaustin.org, earned 5.28 million unique visits and more than 14.1 million pageviews. Our social media accounts (facebook, instagram, twitter, tiktok) earned 85.6 million total impressions and earned 825k total followers across accounts. Most notably, we saw a 77.6% increase in video views on our content about austin. Increasing traveler preference and use of digital media also extends to our publications as evidenced by the more than 70k direct visitor guide requests from visitors. Significant updates to visitaustin.org include the launch of a visual brand refresh in spring 2025, aligning with an organization-wide brand refresh and update to our leisure & meetings enewsletter designs and layouts. The majority of the year was focused on major milestones towards the launch of a fully redesigned website which was completed in q1 of fy 25/26. In 2025, visit austin's communications team achieved remarkable results through strategic m

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: Limited
• Program expense ratio: Limited
• Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
  • Compensation committee: Missing
  • Independent consultant: Pass
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Pass
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Scored; rating input score 0
• Grant itemization coverage: Scored; rating input score 0
• Major donor itemization: Limited
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 15.3%; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.36; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.39; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 12.6%; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: Limited
• Revenue growth: 5.8% per year; rating input score 100; 50th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 12.5% per year; rating input score 100; 74th percentile among comparable filings