Interview With Katie Coats of Visit Mississippi

By Margin Hegwood

“A view from 30,000 feet’ is business term that refers to a perspective from a detached point of observation as if viewing the Earth below from a high-flying jet. It allows the viewer to see all the elements in a business plan at once and how each detail is part of an overall strategy.

Katie Coats, Director of Marketing and Communications for Visit Mississippi, is positioned to do just that. In her position, she must consider the statewide and multi-state regional impacts of tourism strategies and how each element affects overall success. Katie received her certification from the Mississippi State University Extension’s Excellence in Tourism Leadership Program, and in a recent interview she tells how the program has helped her in her career.

“I moved from my first job with Visit Ridgeland to its statewide counterpart Visit Mississippi,” she said, “and there I concentrated on international trade and media. Obviously, it was a much broader field – in effect, worldwide – and it required a broader perspective. Fortunately, that was about the same time I began as an Excellence in Tourism Leadership Program Participant.

Coats emphasized the networking opportunities the program offers.

“I immediately began working and collaborating with other class members,” she said, “and by spending more time with them, I discovered so many of the wonderful tourist destinations we have in Mississippi. I also encountered different aspects of tourism for the first time.

“I became aware of the importance of leadership and advocacy to a successful tourism campaign,” Coats added. “The program instilled in me an appreciation for seeing beyond traditional subjects such as attractions and dining – as important as they are -- and realizing they are part of a bigger picture.”

The program also made her realize how much she has in common with other tourism professionals.

“A lot of the classes I was taking and the interaction with the people I was meeting were applicable to all the work I was doing with board management and leadership,” she said. “It’s remarkable how many times the same problems arise in different venues across the state, and it really helps to see how other tourism professionals have handled them.”

Since Coats’ purview with Visit Mississippi is statewide, networking with other tourism professionals helped her to see which challenges we all have in common.

“For example, through meetings with my counterparts, I realized that in Mississippi we didn’t have a lot of resources for tourists with physical disabilities to enable them to find the accommodations they need,” she said. “So, I thought since I was rebuilding a website that I could work that in. It’s a landing page that has things to do, places to go and places to stay that are accessible. That was my capstone project at Ridgeland.”

Coats recommends the program to aspiring tourism professionals.

“The courses in the Excellence in Tourism Leadership Program covered a broad range of topics, many of which I may not have been exposed to otherwise,” she said. “I came into contact with such areas as cultural tourism and sports tourism that have been invaluable to me in my current role as chief marketing officer.

At its core, the tourism industry is all about people, Coats added, and not about building facilities or turning out reports or coming up with catchy ideas and slogans.

“All those are important, but successful tourism programs are built on personal relationships, and the program has given me an excellent forum to get to know my colleagues throughout the state,” she said. “It has proven to be a wonderful program for me personally as I move through my career, and I feel it would be greatly beneficial to anyone seeking a career in Mississippi tourism or tourism in general.”