GERARDO CORRO

About

Award-winning destination development executive with more than 20 years of leadership in tourism, destination management and public policy across Canada, Mexico, Europe and Latin America. My work is the supply side of tourism economies: attracting hotels, developing experiences and building the reasons visitors stay another night, paired with the marketing and research discipline to prove the return.

As Executive Director of Tourism New Westminster, I lead destination development, investment attraction, marketing, visitor services and government relations for one of British Columbia's most dynamic and culturally diverse cities, reporting to a volunteer Board of Directors. When I arrived in 2023 the organization was one part-time employee and a visitor centre open a few weekdays in season. It now operates year-round with a permanent team, a seasonal crew, hundreds of interns and volunteers, two visitor service points and a mobile booth.

Since then I have set in motion a 75 percent increase in New Westminster's hotel count and a projected 93 percent increase in room capacity, in a city that had added almost nothing in four decades. The first property is open, a major new hotel is approved, and an innovative floating hotel and restaurant is moving through approvals.

I also created NWX, the New West Experience, an open competition inviting entrepreneurs, students, creatives and residents to pitch new visitor experiences. Its first edition drew 52 submissions and put four concepts into development, underwritten by private development partners, Destination BC and the City rather than core budget.

Among the work I am proudest of is the Search for Phillip campaign, where a $10,000 investment generated more than $1 million in earned media across Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe, and won the 2024 British Columbia Tourism Industry Innovation Award. It showed the power of storytelling built around people rather than places.

Earlier I founded GESTUR Consultancy and co-founded Rotamundos, a tourism startup that won the UNWTO Global Rural Tourism Startup Competition in the Implementation of New Technologies category, from more than 900 entries across 130 countries, and was named by Forbes the largest Mexican tourism company by number of properties. Through GESTUR I led the tourism component of the Centro Cultural Álvaro Carrillo in Oaxaca, a cultural facility of approximately CAD 29 million delivered as a public-private partnership with Mexico's national infrastructure fund.

In Mexico, as Director of Tourism for the City of Atlixco, I led a core department of 12 that scaled to event teams of 50 or more, and repositioned the city from a daytrip into an overnight destination. Visitation grew 69 percent, accommodation capacity by 50 percent, and the city earned Pueblo Mágico designation.

I serve on the boards of the BC Destination Management Organization Association, including its Governance Committee, and the Tourism Industry Association of British Columbia. I am Vice Chair of the BC and Yukon chapter of the Travel Media Association of Canada and a board member of Latincouver, and I work closely with Destination BC and regional partners across the province.

I am a keynote speaker in English and Spanish, with working professional French.