Conversations on the Couch
with
Ashley Woitena CEO OF VISITCOLUMBUSGA
In March 2025, Ashley Woitena was named President and CEO of VisitColumbusGA, the organization responsible for promoting tourism in Columbus. Since stepping into the role, she’s hit the ground running. We caught up with her at the Springer, where she was meeting with community leaders to plan upcoming city events. Tell us about yourself and how you ended up at VisitColumbusGA? I moved to this area when I was 18 to play softball at Chattahoochee Valley Community College. I played there for two years and had every intention of leaving and going off to a bigger school. Thankfully, during my freshman year, I started working at a restaurant downtown. In my junior year, I decided to stay here because the people here felt like family. I felt welcomed by everybody, and 90 percent of the people I worked with when I was 18, I’m still friends with today. I fell in love with Columbus, fell in love with what we were doing here. I was here at the time when the Uptown area was doing the whole street scape project. I got to experience all of that with the beginning of the beautification projects. I came to CSU for two years for an undergraduate degree, and I switched from political science to business because of the restaurant side of things. I never really put together restaurant, hospitality or tourism. When a position opened at what was then the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau, I had no idea what that organization was. And, as anyone in the industry will tell you, that’s not unusual—most people don’t realize we exist or understand what we do. I went in for an interview, and thankfully, was awarded the position. I’ve been with VisitColumbusGA for 18 years. It’s been a fun journey of growing up in the industry and having the leadership from my predecessor was phenomenal for me, a good foundation. After receiving my MBA and doing a lot of professional certifications, I was able to continue and now be the CEO of VisitColumbusGA.
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You recently attended the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Savannah. What were your takeaways? It was an amazing conference. Many Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) leaders spoke about the need for funding and marketing efforts for the state. That’s a big push for our advocacy efforts and legislation to help support the state tourism office, because if we support them, it’ll trickle down and support cities. My main takeaway was seeing what Savannah has accomplished and how the state has supported them with initiatives like their conference center. I noticed similar themes at the Inner City Conference in Chattanooga, and it raised an important question for us: do we have our own bold ideas for growth? And how do we ask the state for help with the big ideas? I took away that we’re a family, especially in Georgia. It’s one of those things where tourism welcomes you in. I moderated a panel of 30 under 30s. It was nice to have six different people from all different cities, who were recognized by our International Association as being a 30 under 30 there in the DMO. Getting to hear what excites them about the industry and how they got started was inspiring. And as a new CEO, I’ll admit I selfishly asked, ‘What can leadership do to help you stay in the industry and continue to grow? Because that’s a key thing, too, is to have this great young talent. You don’t want them to leave.
Hot on the heels of the conference in Savannah was the Columbus Chamber’s Inter-City Leadership Conference trip to Chattanooga. Again, what
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insights were you able to bring back to Columbus? Collaboration…a lot of collaboration. Again, I heard about state funding a lot. We continually get compared to cities like Chattanooga, Greenville and Asheville, especially when it comes to the outdoors. Then you pair that with the vibrancy of the arts and culture, the murals and our restaurant scene. It’s a unique situation that we have right here in downtown. But collaboration is probably the key thing I heard, and I feel like that’s happening for us right now. Columbus has all new leadership at Visit Columbus,, Uptown, Chamber, Choose Columbus and the Regional Prosperity Initiative. We’re constantly meeting and looking at what we can be doing and to support each other. We all want a great community. We all are proud of where we live, and we really want to showcase Columbus to the outside audience and make our locals proud.
us that mecca in the U.S. for freestyle kayaking, and to earn the title of the freestyle kayaking capital of the U.S., which is another big deal. So, to have announced those two accolades, along with the new Wave on the river and the school, a lot is happening. Then our job is to meet with the locals who are involved in the execution of that event. How do we help market it and bring people here for it? Last time we hosted that we brought in people from Asheville because they wanted to see how we were doing this. When you get into the marketing side of things, it’s all about asking: who will attend this event? Using our data and analytics, how can we target the right people to make sure they show up and see it? The world is coming to Columbus again. How do we really make sure that we’re telling that story? I’m sure we will have a lot more plans as we get closer.
In 2027, Columbus will be hosting the International Canoe Federation World Cup. What do you envision for that?
We have significant milestones to celebrate for our nation and city coming up. Tell us more about what VisitColumbusGA has planned.
It was a great honor for us to hold that press conference and announce two major milestones for The Wave— sharing both the new titles and the accolades that come with Columbus being named the ICF Center of Excellence for freestyle kayaking, or as they refer to it, canoeing. That is opening the door for us to be a training center and for what Dan at Whitewater Express will be doing to help train the youth. It’s almost making
——————————————— Learn more of what Columbus has to offer at VisitColumbusGA.com.
I’m focused right now on the United States’ 250th Anniversary. I’ve talked with the library, and they’re doing an entire series honoring the milestone. I met with some locals here who were on the committee for the 250th as well, and I enjoyed hearing their dreams and vision to honor and celebrate the U.S.A.