It’s been a busy summer so far for Visit Alexandria.
Fresh off the heels of Croatia’s national soccer team using the city as a base camp during the World Cup, America’s 250th celebration and the city’s birthday, Visit Alexandria’s CEO Todd O’Leary expects a sleepy August, followed by a busy fall full of parades, art festivals and holiday events.
O’Leary took the helm of Alexandria’s tourism bureau two years ago, about the time that it launched its Best Kept Shh! promotional campaign. That same year, in 2024, Visit Alexandria reported tourism spending in the city reached an all-time high of $1 billion.
O’Leary and his staff are tasked with promoting Alexandria, a top-10 designation for several years running in Travel + Leisure’s list of best U.S. cities.
“The secret is definitely out,” O’Leary said. “It’s time to start shouting from the rooftops that Alexandria is a destination worth visiting, and kind of leveraging some of these national accolades.”
Under a budget crunch
O’Leary told ALXnow that the organization, like all city departments and agencies, is in the second year of a budget crunch. This year, O’Leary received about $4.4 million in funding from the city — about a 4% reduction.
“Cuts are not easy, ever,” O’Leary said. “We have less dollars to spend, so having that really watertight strategy about where are visitors coming from, where do they want to go, how do they want to spend their time and their money here and then putting content in front of them, putting travel inspiration in front of them that’s compelling.”
He also said that he breathed a sigh of relief when City Council eliminated a suggestion by City Manager Jim Parajon to have paid parking on Sunday at certain locations throughout the city.
“That is definitely a positive development,” O’Leary said. “I understand why the city has to look at all of their different levers to generate revenue.”
Hotel occupancy in the city was down 3% year over year for the period of July to December 2025, and revenue per available room also fell, according to a Visit Alexandria report. Visits from Canada have also dipped between 20% and 30%.
O’Leary is also concerned about staying on top of generative engine optimization (GEO) in order for Visit Alexandria searches to stay on top of AI-generated responses in search engines.
“We’re heavily investing in AI,” O’Leary said. “When you talk about how folks are finding travel inspiration, and you type in ‘restaurants in Alexandria,’ nine times out of 10 our website will come up in the top, kind of above the fold, if you will.”
O’Leary is also a fan of business improvement districts (BIDs) and said that Visit Alexandria can’t do destination marketing while running events and beautification projects. City Council recently endorsed a memo from Councilwoman Sandy Marks to explore other economic strategies aside from a BID for the King Street corridor.
“I’m still somewhat shocked that a city like Alexandria doesn’t have a BID yet,” O’Leary said. “We’re not event planners, we’re not beautification experts.”
Last fall, Visit Alexandria embarked on a new neighborhood initiative to encourage visitors and locals to go beyond Old Town.
“I think Old Town is the chapter that opens the book that is Alexandria,” O’Leary said. “But we are responsible for the entirety of marketing Alexandria, and that includes all of our different neighborhoods.”
The tourism bureau also unveiled a five-year strategic plan with ambitious goals.
Before coming to Alexandria, O’Leary was vice president of marketing for Sonoma County Tourism for five years, before which he was a vice president for the San Francisco Travel Association, and vice president of marketing for Visit Milwaukee, according to his LinkedIn page. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and received a travel industry specialist certification from Indiana University.
“I really honed my tourism chops in working for destinations like San Francisco and Sonoma County that operate at a very high level,” O’Leary said. “That has been really formative in how I approach destination marketing in general.”
