SPEAKER BIOS
John Lambeth
President & CEO, Civitas
John Lambeth, attorney and Civitas’ President & CEO, specializes in developing unique funding strategies for tourism and travel promotion. He has over twenty years of experience working with destination marketing organizations and state travel offices. Whether adopting enabling legislation, building support among businesses and electeds, or guiding the formation process, Lambeth is the expert in tourism district creation. He has assisted in over 300 improvement districts, including 177 tourism focused districts, and helped create the first property-based improvement districts in California.
The primary author of the Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994, Lambeth also wrote legislation for several states and assisted
with legislation in El Salvador and Brazil. He was instrumental in the drafting and adoption of California’s AB 483 to protect DMO funding for the travel industry.
Lambeth is a prominent speaker on tourism districts. Visit England, the City of Maringa, Brazil, ISHAE, DMAI, CalTravel, Destinations International, US Travel, and the Association of Town & City Management in Ballymena, Ireland are among the organizations for which he has given presentations, and he addressed the 10th Annual BID gathering in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Featured in Forbes for his efforts to transform marketing funding models, Lambeth also became the 2014 recipient of the CalTravel Promotion and Advancement of Tourism Award. He and his firm have been recognized as national leaders in the development and implementation of revolutionary financing mechanisms for destination management.