Alexis Berggren will leave Explore Evansville for Charlotte

EVANSVILLE — Alexis Berggren, president and CEO of Explore Evansville , will leave the high-profile job at year's end.

Explore Evansville announced shortly before 1 p.m. Thursday that Berggren, who played a key role organizing the city's response to April's total solar eclipse, is headed next to the Charlotte (North Carolina) Regional Visitors Authority. There she will serve as general manager of the Charlotte Convention Center.

Explore Evansville, a 501(c)(3) organization, calls itself, "the official sales and marketing agency for tourism" in Evansville and Vanderburgh County.

An Explore Evansville news release hailed Berggren as "a driving force behind many of the organization's significant accomplishments, attracting over 354,000 visitors and generating more than $69 million in economic impact in almost three years."

"Under her leadership, Explore Evansville welcomed riverboats back to the city’s shore, expanded the Evansville Sports Complex by more than 100 acres and successfully hosted milestone events, including the first-ever IHSAA State Championship in Evansville and the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, which drew tens of thousands of visitors to the region," the statement said.

Ali Hashemy, Explore Evansville board chairman, said Berggren had "laid a strong foundation for continued growth."

Berggren will remain with Explore Evansville through December.

"After seven and a half fulfilling years of service to Evansville, I am excited for the next chapter and confident in the future of Explore Evansville," the announcement quoted Berggren. "I am incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished, and I know the organization will continue to thrive and make a meaningful impact on the community."

It's been a long and winding road for Berggren

The move to Charlotte is another step in the 44-year-old Berggren's career, which has taken her all over the country. She has seen movement and change in Evansville, too.

In July 2023, Visit Evansville, then the city's official tourism organization, announced its rebranding as Explore Evansville .

Before Visit Evansville, the organization had been called the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau. It was founded in 1983 as the Vanderburgh County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The organization's logo changed to reflect the new name while its projects and support remained the same.

Berggren, a Denver native, was hired in January 2022 to succeed Jim Wood. She had worked across the country in cities such as New Orleans and Los Angeles but had become a familiar face locally over the previous five years as general manager of Old National Events Plaza.

Wood had led the Convention & Visitors Bureau through the COVID-19 pandemic, which sent the tourism industry — both locally and nationally — into an unprecedented tailspin .

Most recently, Berggren had essentially helmed Evansville's preparation for April's total solar eclipse as Explore Evansville took the lead in local eclipse planning.

A study commissioned by Explore Evansville and conducted by market research firm Rockport Analytics estimated visitors spent $6.6 million here in the runup to the eclipse.

That's how much Explore Evansville said the total tourism spending "lift" amounted to in the study's area of focus: Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey and Gibson counties in the April 5-9 weekend surrounding the eclipse. The once-in-a-lifetime celestial event happened in Evansville, which was in its 115-mile-wide "path of totality," just after 2 p.m. on April 8, a Monday.

$6.6 million is what Rockport Analytics called the "net spending," or the increase in total tourism spending over what would have been spent without the eclipse. The net is "derived by comparing the expected spending levels for the period of April 5 to April 9 with the observed spending levels over the same period," the firm's report stated.

In other words, money spent by visitors who came specifically for the eclipse.

The biggest chunks of that extra money came in spending for food and beverages and lodging, the Rockport Analytics study found.

Berggren said she will leave Evansville with gratitude for people who have helped her here.

"I am so grateful to the board, staff, and many partners for their unwavering support," she said in Explore Evansville's news release.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Alexis Berggren will leave Explore Evansville for Charlotte