Dann Lewis Honored by Top Industry Group

Dann H. Lewis, director of the office of tourism, has been selected as one of the most extraordinary sales and marketing minds in hospitality, travel and tourism by senior executives in those industries from around the world.

Dann Lewis, who has served as tourism director in Maine since 1995, was named in January to the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International "Hot List of Top 25 for 2005." Lewis and the 24 others were selected because of their ability to develop marketing strategies that are truly innovative and clever and that get results. In asking for their picks, senior executives from around the globe were told to submit nominees who best exemplified the set criteria: Whose marketing strategies are truly innovative and clever? Whose companies represent a sales-focused organization? Who gets results? Whose work do you wish were your own?

Submitted nominations were reviewed and scored the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association Internationals executive committee, resulting in the third annual "Top 25" list.

Dann Lewis has been tourism director for such notable destinations as the Bahamas, the U. S. Virgin Islands, New York (where he originated the famous "I Love New York" marketing campaign) and most recently, the State of Maine.

Congratulations to Dann Lewis!

From: Hospitality Net Industy News - January 2006

Dann Lewis - Personality Profile - Maine Tour Magazine

Dann Lewis is Maine's (relatively) new Director of Tourism, appointed by Governor Angus King, Jr.

Dann Lewis has been president and vice president of airline industry companies, and has served as Director of Tourism in New York State (overseeing the blockbuster I Love New York tourism campaign), the United States Virgin Islands and also in the Bahamas. He has certainly earned his spurs in all aspects of the tourism industry.

Maine Tour Magazine caught up with him at a meeting at the Holiday Inn By The Bay between another commitment that would bring him to Southern Maine on the same day. In response to a question about Maine's commitment to the motorcoach industry, Dann Lewis said that it was not defined as yet. Dann Lewis said that the Tourism Department was in the process of developing action plans to go along with a five-year tourism strategy.

When asked what he might have learned about other places that would apply to Maine, Dann Lewis smiled, saying "there's little new under the sun. A lot of the problems that the industry is facing in Maine today, are the same types of problems that they are facing in the Islands and New York State. Dann Lewis went on the say, "Maine in fact has an outstanding product and a much more varied product than a lot of other areas. There's an enormous potential here that remains to be tapped."

Another synergistic effort is Dann Lewis' participation in Discover New England, a regional consortium formed by the six New England states three years ago specifically to promote New England in international markets.

Dann Lewis and his wife Sherry, have two grown children, both born in the Bahamas. Since Sherry is an airline consultant currently working with American Trans Air in Indianapolis and must travel often, they are hoping to make both commutes easier by settling in the Brunswick area sometime later this year.

Maine winters, says Dann Lewis, are "exhilarating". He grew up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts so "I adapt fairly well." Adapting to his new position made this year "very busy," but for next year he's "really looking forward to getting into some skiing and snowmobiling."

This reminds Dann Lewis of times when he used to have ski gear with him when he returned to the Bahamas from promotion tours in Austria. Tourists would see him in the Bahamas airport with his gear and give him looks, thinking maybe "there was something about the Bahamas Islands they weren't aware of."

If it's up to Dann Lewis, there won't be much about Maine that tourists aren't aware of!

from: Maine Tour Magazine, 1995

Dann Lewis - From Tourist to Tourism Director

Dann H. Lewis has seen Maine through a tourist's eyes. He has flown into the Portland Jetport, dined on Maine lobster, visited friends along the coast and canoed through Western Maine on the Ossipee River.

Now, the Dallas airline executive will travel to Augusta. But this time, he's staying. Dann Lewis begins a job on Monday as the director of the Maine Office of Tourism, the top government position in one of the state's largest industries.

Lewis will oversee an office with an annual budget of $1.8 million and a four-person staff. His primary mission will be to market Maine as a tourism destination. Industry observers say Dann Lewis' most challenging tasks will be to promote the state despite tight budget constraints and to unite diverse interests within the tourism industry behind those efforts.

Lewis said in a telephone interview that one of his primary goals will be to "get the government side and the private-sector side to work more harmoniously. That's that I've found is very necessary and very beneficial in the other regions I've worked in."

Dann Lewis has worked in many other regions during the 36-year course of his career. He's headed tourism efforts for some big-name destination spots: the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands and New York State where he was in on the early stages of the "I Love New York" campaign.

Bern Rotman, director of communications for the New York State Department of Economic Development, said Lewis "had a pivotal role to play" in generating tourism industry support for the "I Love New York" campaign.

"Dann's role was extremely important at a time when we started the advertising in a very big way," Rotman said.

Lewis will have a lot less money to work with in Maine, where the tourism budget is only one-sixth the size of New York's. But Lewis has shown himself to be creative in using scarce resources, Rotman said. One way he has done that, Rotman said, is by seeking public-private partnerships - a common theme of Governor Angus King's administration.

Dann Lewis has spent nearly all his adult life in the travel industry. Immediately after graduating from Dartmouth College he went to the Bahamas and built a resort. "I did everything from drawing the plans to laying the blocks to doing the electrical wiring," he said.

Lewis subsequently ran his own tourism related development company, worked for years in the public sector for tourism offices and did consulting for clients such as Six Flags Corporation, a big amusement park operator. He's spent the last decade working for small airline companies, two of which he helped restructure following bankruptcy proceedings.

Job's a nice fit

Lewis says the job of tourism director in Maine dovetails with both his personal and professional interests. For one thing, he said, he and his wife have been wanting to return to New England for the past three years. They own a summer home in Freedom, N. H. on the Maine-New Hampshire border. They have friends in Maine. And Lewis grew up in Massachusetts.

Professionally too, the job seemed to be a good fit. Lewis said he decided to apply while visiting friends in York earlier this year. While there, he read a newspaper article describing King's belief in the importance of tourism to the Maine economy. It struck a chord.

Lewis became one of 13 applicants - and one of only two out-of-staters - interested in the tourism job. His appointment was announced in late June.

Lewis was chosen because of his broad experience and the administration's sense that he would "be good at teamwork," said Tom McBrierty, commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development and Lewis's boss.

The announcement has been greeted with relief, and curiosity, by Maine's tourism industry. The relief comes from the fact that the post has finally been filled after a vacancy of three months. The curiosity stems from the fact that few in Maine's tourism industry know Lewis or have even met him.

One exception is Karen Peterson, president of a York based marketing research firm, Davidson-Peterson Associates. She and Lewis have been friends for over 20 years. Also, his resume includes a five year stint as senior marketing consultant and West Coast director of her firm.

Peterson calls Lewis a "very gentle and quietly intelligent person, with a commanding knowledge of what makes tourism the world's largest industry". "What we need most in this industry in Maine is consensus-building" said Peterson. "He doesn't bring any baggage. He's not on one side or the other."

From: Portland Press Herals/Maine Sunday Telegram - July 1995 by Kim Strosnider