Aurora CVB names new executive director

AURORA - The Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau has hired Cort Carlson as executive director.

With 16 plus years of management, communications, sales, marketing and promotions experience, Carlson's specialties include budgeting, marketing planning, management, special events and consensus-building.

Carlson had been community and economic development director for the city of Woodstock for the past three years. Previously he led positions as assistant general manager of Chicago Premium Outlets and executive director of McHenry County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a bachelors in Journalism and Public Relations.

Carlson looks forward to growing the awareness of the Aurora Area as a tourism destination and increase the economic impact of travel to the local communities. According to the most recent travel figures provided by the Illinois Office of Tourism (2013) the Aurora area generates $371 million in travel expenditures and $6.5 million in local tax receipts.*Economic Impact numbers taken from The Economic Impact of Travel on Illinois Counties 2013, a study prepared for the Illinois Office of Tourism by the Research Department of the U.S. Travel Association, Washington, D.C.

The Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau serves as the tourism marketing and management organization for Aurora, Batavia, Big Rock, Hinckley, North Aurora, Montgomery, Plano, Sandwich, Sugar Grove and Yorkville.