How Visit Austin Turned a Convention Center Closure Into a $748M Marketing Win

Visit Austin currently has a $1.6 billion problem. But it came up with a $748 million answer.

The destination marketing organization was awarded the Marketing Momentum Award at the ESTO 2026 conference, the U.S. Travel Association’s annual gathering for destination marketing professionals, for a leisure campaign that generated 28,300 hotel bookings, $9.36 million in direct hotel revenue, and a reported $748 million in total economic impact.

The campaign also racked up 254.7 million impressions and a $374:1 ROI.

So, how did Visit Austin turn a potentially painful convention-center closure into an opportunity to sell more summer leisure travel?

For starters, it knew exactly what it was up against.

The Austin Convention Center, Austin’s largest event venue and a cash cow, has been closed since April 2025 for a $1.6 billion demolition and reconstruction project that won’t wrap until 2029. That means four years without the city’s primary convention hub, and a pretty sizable hole to fill when it comes to convention-driven hotel room nights.

Now add a historically slower summer season, when midweek occupancy isn’t exactly an easy sell with temperatures hovering in the 90s, and Visit Austin had its work cut out for it.

So, the DMO went looking for a different kind of traveler.

Selling the Summer

“Leisure is just one component of our destination resilience strategy, but we knew protecting and growing leisure room nights would be critical during the redevelopment years,” said Shelley Hall, Visit Austin’s vice president of marketing.

The strategy was to target “curious urban travelers,” as Hall calls them. In other words, people with household incomes of at least $150,000 who could reach Austin via nonstop flights.

With data from destination marketing intelligence platforms Zartico and Adara Impact, plus air-service reports from partners at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Visit Austin focused on New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.

The creative had a similarly specific job to remind people that Austin has plenty going on even when there isn’t a convention on the calendar.

The historic Sixth Street Mural in Austin tells the city's story. Photo Credit: Visit Austin

Make Austin "a Show”

That idea started before the convention center closed.

In late 2024, Visit Austin refreshed its overall branding and logo for the first time since 2017, swapping its black-and-white look for vibrant red and orange hues that better reflected the city’s personality.

Then came the campaign platform: “You’re in for a show.”

The line played off Austin’s reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World, but Visit Austin wasn’t interested in making a campaign solely about concerts. Instead, it used the energy and anticipation associated with live music as a way to package the broader Austin experience.

The concept was “building on the parallels of excitement for live music to all the wonderful things Austin offers to travelers in our destination,” Hall said. Think: “A 5 a.m. line at Franklin for mouthwatering barbecue, a splash in a 68-degree natural pool on a warm summer day, live music every night of the week. Everything’s game here.”

Importantly, the DMO wasn’t relying solely on its staffers’ hometown bias to determine what would resonate. Third-party research found that live music, barbecue, shopping, unique local dining, nightlife, outdoor activities, and events were all draws for travelers visiting Austin.

To get that message out, Visit Austin leaned into “custom content and a video-first strategy.”

“We do not do print media for leisure audiences,” Hall said, a strategy she said has continually delivered a higher return in fly markets.

The DMO also made a meaningful investment in an Advertising Effectiveness Study with SMARInsights, expanding beyond its traditional reliance on partner Adara Impact data. “We are now able to measure a more holistic view of our campaign performance,” Hall said.

Bats emerge at South Congress Bridge nightly in Austin. Credit: Visit Austin

The Results

The study found that social media ads had the highest level of recall across all age groups.

And the creative itself offered some interesting takeaways, according to Hall:

• Culinary creative drove the highest reach and engagement but showed the lowest video completion efficiency, suggesting strong initial interest but weaker retention.
• Outdoor creative delivered the strongest video completion rate and overall efficiency, indicating it resonates most consistently with viewers.
• Music provided a balanced performance across impressions, completions, and engagements, making it a reliable middle-ground creative asset for Visit Austin.

And then there were the hotel numbers.

From May through September 2025, Austin’s citywide hotel occupancy was down 5.3% year over year—even as hotel supply increased 2.3%, giving travelers more rooms to choose from.

But the trajectory was moving in the right direction. The yearly occupancy gap narrowed from down 8.7% in May to just 5.1% in August, before occupancy edged into positive territory at 0.8% above the prior year in September.

That timing matters. With travelers typically booking 30 to 50 days ahead, Hall said the campaign’s biggest impact showed up toward the end of the summer, as the bookings generated by the campaign worked their way through the pipeline.

For a destination trying to keep hotel rooms filled while its biggest convention asset sits behind a construction fence, that’s a pretty compelling outcome.

Photo Credit: Visit Austin