Mark Calitri | Leadership, Performance & Destination Marketing

  Messenger-Inquirer: Tourism Means Big Business in Owensboro Don’t take our word for it. The Messenger-Inquirer recently took a closer look at the growing impact of tourism in Owensboro-Daviess County, and the numbers tell the story. Daviess County’s tourism economy reached $262.9 million , an increase of $13.2 million in one year and the largest one-year increase in more than 20 years. The article also highlighted Owensboro’s record hotel occupancy, more than 2,000 tourism-supported jobs , and the impact of bluegrass, bourbon and major events like ROMP and BBQ & Barrels. Visit Owensboro President Mark Calitri told the Messenger-Inquirer, “These numbers don’t just set a new record. They represent the largest year-over-year increase in tourism impact in the history of Owensboro-Daviess County.” The Messenger-Inquirer says it best: tourism has become big business in the Owensboro area. Read the full Messenger-Inquirer story   https://www.hometownregister.com/from-bluegras...

  Saying No Is Easy. Finding a Way Takes Leadership. Someone brings you a great idea. What happens next? Too many leaders immediately start looking for everything that could go wrong. Why it costs too much. Why the timing is bad. Why it’s been tried before. Saying no is easy. Not every idea will work. That’s reality. But the best leaders don’t look for a reason to kill an idea before they’ve worked through it. They listen. They collaborate. They get the right people involved and ask: “What needs to change for this to work?” That one question changes the conversation from why we can’t to how we might . You may still end up at no. But don’t start there. Work with your people. Work the problem. Find a way to make the good ideas work. — Mark Calitri Winning Leadership P.S. Before you say no, find out what it would take to say yes.

  What Are You Working So Hard For? Most of us spend a lot of our lives chasing something. A better job. More money. The next promotion. A bigger win. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to succeed. I’m competitive. I like to win. I believe in working hard and holding yourself to a high standard. But at some point, you have to ask a bigger question: What am I working this hard for? Maybe the scoreboard isn't just what you accomplish. Maybe it also includes the people around you. Who did you help? Who did you encourage? Who got an opportunity because you opened a door? Who is better because you showed up? That’s where service comes in. It doesn't mean lowering your goals or losing your competitive edge. It means realizing that your success can be bigger than you. That’s a scoreboard worth paying attention to. — Mark Calitri Winning Leadership Watch & Follow Winning Leadership YouTube:  https://youtube.com/shorts/A13D9PibjCY  Instagram:    http...

  Don’t Just Share the Attention. Build on It. Only In Kentucky recently called Owensboro “Kentucky’s Most Underrated Weekend Getaway.” That is the kind of recognition every destination wants. My first reaction was simple: share it. My second thought was better. What else can we do with it? That question changed the value of the article. We shared the recognition on Visit Owensboro’s Facebook page, but we did not want it to end there. The article gave us a strong outside voice saying something positive about Owensboro, and that created an opportunity to tell the story in our own way. So we built on it. We created a Visit Owensboro blog around the weekend getaway idea. We pulled photos and video we already had in Google Drive. We started repurposing that content for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube. The article gave us the spark. Our job was to see how far we could carry it. That is a useful marketing lesson for any business or organization. When somebody else reco...

Nine state championships. Thousands of visitors. More than $1 million in economic impact. That's what the Kentucky 2A Championships brought to Owensboro last year. And they're coming back. During the 2026-27 school year, Owensboro will host nine Kentucky 2A state championships , bringing athletes, coaches and families from 55 schools across Kentucky. Last year's championships brought an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 visitors and generated $1,004,589 in economic impact . That's real money being spent in Owensboro hotels, restaurants, stores, gas stations and local businesses. The championships will take place across the community at Owensboro Country Club, Brescia University, Owensboro High School, the Owensboro Sportscenter, Jack C. Fisher Park and Apollo High School. Owensboro Health continues as a major partner, while Maui's Indoor Theme Park gives visiting families another reason to get out and experience Owensboro. There's another win here too. Thousands of Kent...

 The delays at the Bluegrass Fieldhouse in Owensboro, Kentucky have cost us business. There’s no way around that. The Messenger-Inquirer recently reported that five major sports weekends have been lost because of the delays, with Owensboro hotels losing an estimated 10% to 20% occupancy on those weekends. But think about what that tells us. As President & CEO of Visit Owensboro , I’ve watched the sports pipeline build firsthand. If we’re losing that much business without the Bluegrass Fieldhouse open, what happens when we have seven full-size courts filled with athletes and families? That’s the opportunity in front of Owensboro. We’ve moved our Owensboro sports tourism focus to 2027, and the pipeline is strong. The Bluegrass Fieldhouse will allow us to compete for tournaments and sporting events we simply couldn’t host before. Those athletes bring parents, coaches and families who stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, shop in our stores and spend money throughout the c...

  What Does 4,256 Really Tell You About Pete Rose? On August 14, 1986, Pete Rose collected the 4,256th and final hit of his Major League career. But what does 4,256 really tell you? It tells you Pete could hit a baseball. But that’s not the lesson. You don’t get to 4,256 on talent alone. You get there with hustle. Effort. Showing up. Rolling up your sleeves and doing the work when nobody is handing you anything. Pete played the game hard. He competed. He kept getting back in the box. That matters far beyond baseball. A lot of people have talent. A lot of people have good ideas. A lot of people talk about what they’re going to do. But at some point, the talking has to stop. You have to put in the effort. That’s one of the lessons I keep coming back to with Pete Rose. He didn’t build the greatest hit total in baseball history with one big swing. He built it one at-bat at a time. Get on base. Win the next at-bat. Keep going. That mindset is a big part of The Winning Leadership Playbo...