Rec Sports
Promoting a Diverse Tourism Portfolio
New Explore Evansville President and CEO Tom White is approaching the agency’s top job with one keyword — growth — in mind for strengthening the city’s portfolio of tourism-related event offerings. White’s most recent career stop was with Visit Mobile, Alabama’s northernmost Gulf inlet. Drawing connections to the boost in meetings, conventions, and sports tourism […]

New Explore Evansville President and CEO Tom White is approaching the agency’s top job with one keyword — growth — in mind for strengthening the city’s portfolio of tourism-related event offerings.
White’s most recent career stop was with Visit Mobile, Alabama’s northernmost Gulf inlet. Drawing connections to the boost in meetings, conventions, and sports tourism that the Southern city of 201,367 has seen, White says Evansville is capable of the same.
“I do feel like we can have some immediate success here but also sustain that growth over the next five, 10 years in Evansville,” says White, who spent two years as Visit Mobile’s vice president of leisure and convention sales.
As reported in December 2024/January 2025 Evansville Business, youth sports tourism in Evansville has boomed in recent years thanks to aggressive marketing and tournament-ready venues such as Deaconess Sports Park, Goebel Soccer Complex, and Deaconess Aquatic Center. White vows to maintain that focus and up the ante in supporting the Evansville Regional Sports Commission’s mission to attract high-profile sports events.
“The largest market segment for us is sports tourism,” White says, who adds that he wants to learn “where we are and we’re going to grow with our current assets. And we’re going to add assets in the future, which is going to keep us at the top, competing on a national level.”
The city also has room to increase its convention and meeting business, White says. “We have a quality convention center with the Old National Events Plaza, and our Ford Center is incredible,” he says. “Plus, we have meeting spaces throughout the community, and some of them are historic, unique spots. Meetings, small meetings, and then some mid-size conventions are something that we can continue to grow.”
How to accomplish that? White explains that it comes down to connecting with event planners, asking what they’re looking for, and selling what Evansville provides.
“It is very competitive when you talk about other destinations where they’re all going after those meetings and conventions,” he says. “… (Larger communities) bring a lot to the table. But what they also bring are some things that people push back on: higher prices to the room rates, a higher cost of getting in there, they charge for parking. And when you start adding up all the little things, all of a sudden, the overall cost of that convention is higher.”
In a market Evansville’s size, “your dollar goes farther,” White says. “Convention attendees would spend a lot less money in our community.”
Connections are important in the tourism industry, White says, and he brings plenty of those to the River City. Before taking his position at Visit Mobile, White spent more than 20 years in Huntsville, Alabama. Most of that time, he served as director of sales and outreach with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and he also was the marketing director for Yedla Management Company, a Huntsville-based manager of hotels.
Yedla’s properties fan across Alabama and in markets such as Orlando, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Brentwood, Tennessee. “It was spread out, and my connections on a national level helped those properties,” White says. (As it happens, Evansville-area residents have convenient access to all three cities. Evansville Regional Airport travelers destined for Orlando can reach it through twice-weekly direct air service from Allegiant Air and Breeze Airways. Passengers bound for Charlotte can get there via daily direct flights offered by American Airlines. Road trippers have to put rubber to road for only 151 miles to reach the Tennessee capital.)
Earlier in White’s career, he worked as a general sales manager for Shoe Carnival, which was founded in Evansville. He was born in Nuremberg, Germany, while his father was stationed there with the U.S. Army. He considers the Savannah, Georgia, area his home.
White says he was drawn to Explore Evansville by the area’s potential. He succeeded Alexis Berggren, who left in December to become general manager of the Charlotte (North Carolina) Convention Center.
“Alexis and the team have done a tremendous job of really paving the foundation of what we’re doing,” White says. “I think I can bring a lot of experience and connections within the sale of tourism and marketing, and we can start a sustained, steady growth over the next several years, in all categories. It’s not like sports is going to lead us, or meetings and conventions. I think each category is going to grow gradually on its own.”