Liz Johnson joins Visit Seattle as a Tourism Manager in the International Tourism department, effective January 7, 2019.
In this role, Johnson will be responsible for promoting Seattle as a world-class leisure destination in Seattle’s top international markets.
Johnson joins Visit Seattle after five years as a Seattle-based Account Manager, Global Sales at Icelandair. Prior to her time in the airline industry, Liz was in Alaska working for the CIRI Alaska Tourism Corporation and Explore Fairbanks. Johnson attended the University of Oregon, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature and Romance Languages – French and Italian.
“We are excited for Liz to join Visit Seattle as our newest Tourism Manager,” said John Boesche, Vice President, International Tourism at Visit Seattle. “Liz comes to us with a unique set of experiences and contacts that align well with the objectives of this role and with our efforts in International Tourism. I’m confident she will hit the ground running and make an immediate impact with our partners across Washington State and our customers all over the world.”
Seattle and Washington State continues to be a popular destination for overseas travelers, with consistent growth over the past decade. In 2018, Seattle welcomed an estimated 2.5 million international visitors, including nearly 700,000 from overseas markets. This sustained growth is largely fueled by overseas air service development efforts at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac), which currently has 24 intercontinental nonstop services to six cities in Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taipei and Tokyo), seven cities in Europe (Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Paris and Reykjavik) and Dubai. International traffic continues to grow at Sea-Tac, up 5.4 percent in 2017, which included a 17.1 percent increase in traffic to Europe. Four new intercontinental nonstop services will be added in 2019, including flights to Osaka (Delta; April 1), Tokyo (Japan Airlines; March 31), Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific; March 31) and Singapore (Singapore Airlines; September).
