Brandie Richardson

The Louisiana Travel Promotion Association (LTPA), a non-profit organization that represents the state's travel and hospitality industry, recently announced their 2016 graduates of their Louisiana Tourism Leadership Academy. Among the 22 graduates was Tracy Browning, Executive Director of Tour Ascension.

LTLA has been a tremendous opportunity for those interested in learning more about Louisianas tourism industry, and we are proud of the 2016 graduating class, said Jill Kidder, LTPA President and CEO. It is our hope that these professionals will utilize their new-found knowledge and experience to better themselves, their organizations and their state.

The year long leadership class met every other month at various locations around the state to help tourism-related organizations with skills such as advocacy, product development, leadership and management, networking and marketing.

"I thought this would be a grate learning and educational tool to participate in," Browning said. "It also is networking and meeting other people that do the same things that we are involved in. It was a great way to meet other people in the state."

She said one of the biggest tools she took away from the class to help boost tourism in Ascension Parish is advocacy, along with how bills pass through legislature.

"It was an education part for me, understanding how it was relative back to our business and how it can affect us."

Other 2017 graduates included representatives from organizations and parishes such as St. Tammany Parish, Bayou Country Childrens Museum, the Louisiana Office of Tourism, New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation and Nottoway, Oak Alley and the Myrtles Plantations, to name a few.

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Tour Ascension executive director among leadership academy graduates - Weekly Citizen