PORTLAND, Ore. — Travel Portland is set to welcome a new CEO and president at the start of the new year after nearly two decades. The organization has announced Megan Conway has been selected for the position as the current CEO/President Jeff Miller announced his retirement in June 2023.
“Landing on tourism in Portland in particular is just the pride of my career,” said Conway.
Conway currently serves as the chief strategy officer for Travel Portland. She has been with the company for 15 years.
KGW’s Daisy Caballero asked Conway what sets her apart for this position.
“I’ve come up through the organization and through different roles within tourism,” said Conway, “so, it gives me an opportunity to really have experienced a lot of the different dynamics of our teams and also the work that needs to be done in order for us to really drive those visitor numbers back.”
According to Travel Portland, over 12 million people last year traveled to Portland and spent $5.4 billion. This in turn generated $1.7 billion in employment earnings, as well as $260 million in state and local tax revenue, while supporting 34,300 jobs.
“I think Portland is absolutely moving in the right direction,” said Conway. “Many of our visitors want to be repeat visitors. We find that 65% of people who have been here before would like to come back again. So, we capitalize some of our marketing on those audiences and people who have been visitors before looking to get them to return. But we also find ourselves to be an intriguing first-time destination.”
And while Conway believes Portland is headed in the right direction, there are a few things she’d like to tackle in her new position.
“We are still really working to change some of the national media perceptions and work in close partnership with the city and key agencies in town to make sure we are all out there talking about the good and positive developments that have happened across the city in the last couple of years,” she said.
Conway is also looking at winning visitors and the people of Portland back by highlighting what the city has to offer, as downtown foot traffic increased by 10% compared to 2022 and hotel occupancy has increased from 57.3% in 2023 to 62.7% this year.
"We find that the more recently people have been downtown the better their opinion of our city is, and we need Portanders to love Portland again,” said Conway. “So, we're committed to that work, in addition to bringing visitors — whether they're repeated visitors or it's their first time coming to Portland. "
The Portland Visitor Center saw more than 25,000 individual visits, and about 33% of those were international visitors in the last 15 months, according to Travel Portland.