Backsen Departs Visit Omaha After Five Years
Keith Backsen is concluding his tenure at the head of the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau effective today, as the organization plans how to help the city’s tourism and hospitality industries rebound as travel starts to resume after the pandemic.
Backsen has spent the last five years at the helm of Visit Omaha, as the city department is known to the public. In that time, he’s made the city more competitive when bidding for large events, shifted the internal culture of the bureau and stressed the importance of the tourism sector within the city.
“In the last three months, you really have seen what happens when tourism doesn’t happen,” Backsen told The Daily Record in a recent telephone interview.
Omaha has missed out on the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, College World Series, Olympic Swim Trials, arena concerts and many smaller events – with no clear end in sight, as the cases of coronavirus keep climbing locally and nationally.
The current moment is “an opportunity to really accentuate the fact that tourism is a huge part of Omaha’s DNA,” Backsen said. “When I look ahead, we’ve got to determine as a community how important is tourism to us.”
Omaha is continuing to make key investments – such as downtown riverfront revitalization and the rise of the Capital District – but Backsen said more resources likely need to be committed, including improvements to the CHI Health Center arena and convention center and possibly additional hotel accommodations downtown.
Tourism is a $1.3 billion part of the Omaha economy, he noted.
“What if we didn’t have that $1.3 billion?” Backsen asked. “We have to be cognizant of making sure that our (tourism) assets continue to grow or maintain and also evolve into new things.”
Convention centers across the U.S. continue to expand, so Omaha must be cautious to not be left behind. Gems like the Old Market and Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium need to be polished, so they continue to shine and so that tourists continue to discover them.
The work of continuing to foster tourism in Omaha will fall to an interim director, as Mayor Jean Stothert conducts a search for a permanent replacement.
Backsen said that he had planned to come to Omaha for three to five years, and he started planning to make a transition. He realized he needed to spend more time with his 95-year-old mother and that Visit Omaha was ready to carry on under new leadership.
“My team is in a good spot,” Backsen said. “Based on everything that has been happening in the world recently, I moved my timeline up a little bit.”
Backsen came to Omaha from the Pacific Northwest, where he was a vice president at Visit Spokane in Washington and previously worked at Travel Portland in Oregon. He holds a degree in tourism management from Oregon State University
In his first year in Omaha, Backsen was invited to the annual gala benefitting the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium. He said that he figured he might be able to find a good deal on something in the charity auction at the event.
“Oh, my goodness, when the raised the paddle doesn’t go below like a thousand dollars, I’m like, ‘I’m definitely not in this pay scale.’ But what it really showed me is how much this community puts back into their community,” Backsen said.
The philanthropic community in Omaha is next level. Backsen said that’s on display this week, as several municipal pools reopen in time for the Independence Day weekend thanks to the generous support of anonymous donors.
Backsen said the philanthropic community also stepped up last year to save the annual concert at Memorial Park, which is now the City of Omaha Celebrates America concert and is scheduled to return June 25, 2021. The concert would have been canceled after a sponsor backed out, and the pandemic likely would have halted its return without a financial backer for the free community event.
“We have a very giving philanthropic community – very different than many other communities,” he said. “That is something that you don’t understand until you come here and live and see how much these people care about Omaha.”
As Visit Omaha continues into the future, Backsen said the bureau is conducting regular barometer checks with businesses and trying to gauge how much damage the pandemic – including the recent civil unrest and economic consequences – has caused.
“There is a lot of change going on in our industry,” he said. “We just have to wait for the right timing and figure out when do we start inviting the visitors to come back, and there’s a balancing act.”
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