The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Misti Kerns, president & CEO of Santa Monica Travel & Tourism (formerly Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau) have been selected to receive top honors from the Travel & Tourism Marketing Association of Southern California (TTMA) at its upcoming annual TTMA awards ceremony.
The awards ceremony and luncheon will be held this year on Thursday, October 22 at the Le Meridien Delfina Santa Monica from 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Two hundred travel-industry professionals are expected at the event, which is open to the public.
This year's honorees were selected unanimously by the TTMA Board of Directors from a pool of nominees submitted by the organization's members.
Kerns, who has served in leadership roles for Santa Monica Travel & Tourism for the past 18 years, will receive TTMA's Anastasia K. Mann Leadership Award for her outstanding stewardship of Santa Monica's efforts to attract meetings, conventions and tourism business, and her various roles within regional and state-wide tourism organizations. LACMA will receive the TTMA Landmark Award for its remarkable contributions in attracting tourists to the Los Angeles region for the past 50 years as the leading art museum in the western United States.
Tourism is one of the Los Angeles region's largest industries. More than 44 million tourists visit Los Angeles each year, spending $18 billion in the local economy and supporting nearly 500,000 local jobs. In Santa Monica alone, tourists injected an additional $1.72 billion into the local economy in 2014, supporting 13,700 non-exportable jobs and generating an additional $45.5 million directly into the city's general fund.
Founded in 1971, TTMA is the premier Southern California organization devoted to providing continuing education and a forum for the exchange of ideas and information among professionals from diverse tourism industry sectors. Its member include tourism marketing leaders representing cultural institutions and tourist attractions, media outlets, public relations and consulting services, lodging and hospitality providers, transportation, destination management organizations, tour operators, travel agencies and other businesses that rely on tourism and the jobs it creates.
For more information on TTMA and its 2015 TTMA Awards Ceremony and Luncheon, visit ttma.org.
