Visit Knoxville

What Visit Knoxville does

Visit Knoxville (legally the Knoxville Convention and Visitors Bureau) is the official destination marketing organization (DMO) for the City of Knoxville and Knox County, Tennessee. It serves as the consolidated, authoritative resource for visitors — leisure travelers, meeting and convention planners, sports event organizers, and film production scouts — seeking information on events, attractions, restaurants, hotels, and outdoor activities in the Knoxville region. The organization also positions Knoxville as a destination through national earned media, social channels, and a physical visitor center at 301 S. Gay Street in downtown Knoxville.

The product portfolio is centered on the visitknoxville.com tourism portal (powered by the Simpleview CRM platform and a partner extranet) and includes a free print and digital Visitors Guide, a category-rich editorial blog, the Barxville pet-friendly tourism campaign, the in-house WDVX radio station, and two wholly-owned operating subsidiaries — the Knoxville Sports Commission and the Knoxville Film Commission. Distribution spans owned digital (website, blog, email newsletter, social on Instagram/Facebook/Pinterest), earned national press (CNN Travel, Southern Living, Bon Appetit, NPR), a printed visitor guide, and a downtown visitor center. The Barxville campaign has been recognized with the HABRI Innovation Award and 72 dog-welcoming hotels and 53 pet-friendly restaurants are featured in the directory.

The business model is the standard U.S. DMO funding stack: hotel/motel occupancy tax allocations from the City of Knoxville and Knox County, membership dues from local tourism-related businesses, advertising and sponsorship on visitknoxville.com, and event-leverage revenue from major hosted events such as the Bassmaster Classic and the Big Ears Festival. The Big Ears Festival is supported by a diversified public-private funding base that includes the National Endowment for the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, South Arts, the Aslan Foundation, Pilot Company, the Boyd Foundation, and the City and County. Revenue figures, employee count, and ownership structure are not publicly disclosed; the organization is privately held and operates as a non-profit-style DMO rather than a venture-backed business.

Name

Visit Knoxville

Legal name

Visit Knoxville

Website

https://visitknoxville.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Visit Knoxville is the official destination marketing organization for Knoxville and Knox County, Tennessee, operating the visitknoxville.com tourism portal, the Barxville pet-friendly campaign, WDVX radio, and the Knoxville Sports and Film Commissions, funded by hotel taxes, memberships, and event-driven revenue.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Destination Marketing and Tourism Promotion Services

NAICS

Convention and Visitors Bureaus (561591), Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (71)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYTHAHADAA

Full-Service Destination Management (Ground Handling & Onsite Operations)

Travel & Hospitality/MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions)/Destination Management Companies (DMCs) & Incentive Travel Specialists

Keywords

• Destination marketing
• Tourism promotion
• Visitor services
• Meeting planning
• Sports tourism

Headquarters

HQ city

Knoxville

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Tourism Promotion and Destination Marketing: Visit Knoxville operates as a destination marketing organization (DMO) funded primarily through tourism-related revenues, hotel occupancy taxes, and partnership/membership programs with local businesses. Revenue is generated via advertising on visitknoxville.com, sponsored content, partnership fees, and potentially member-based programs.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Visit Knoxville is the official destination marketing organization (DMO) for the City of Knoxville and Knox County, Tennessee, promoting the region to leisure travelers, meeting planners, sports organizers, and the film industry. It operates a tourism portal (visitknoxville.com) with events, attractions, restaurants, hotels, and trip planning tools, and runs specialized services through its Sports Commission, Film Commission, and Meetings divisions. Supporting offerings include the free Visitors Guide, the Barxville pet-friendly tourism campaign, the WDVX community radio station, and an editorial blog covering arts, culture, outdoors, food, and local events.

Product overview

Visit Knoxville is the official destination marketing organization for Knoxville, Tennessee, operating a unified tourism portal that combines event discovery, attraction guides, visitor planning tools, and editorial content. The organization's product portfolio includes the core Visit Knoxville Tourism Portal, the Barxville pet-friendly tourism campaign featuring Hank the Golden Retriever, the in-house WDVX radio station, a complimentary Visitors Guide publication, specialized Meetings & Sports Commission services, and an editorial blog covering arts, culture, outdoors, food, and local events. Together these offerings provide comprehensive tourism promotion and visitor services for the Knoxville region.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Visit Knoxville Tourism Portal Official destination tourism website for Knoxville, Tennessee, providing visitors with event listings, attraction information, restaurant guides, hotel recommendations, and travel planning resources.
• Meetings & Conventions Services Specialized services for meeting and convention planners, providing venue recommendations, hotel block coordination, destination logistics, and convention promotion for Knoxville.
• Sports Commission Services Sports tourism services operated by the Knoxville Sports Commission, a core subsidiary of Visit Knoxville, providing event recruitment, venue sourcing, lodging coordination, and local logistics for sporting events such as the Bassmaster Classic, UT athletics, and amateur competitions.
• Film Commission Services Film and television production tourism services operated by the Knoxville Film Commission, a core subsidiary of Visit Knoxville, providing location resources, connections to local crew and vendors, and promotional support including the Knoxville Film Festival.
• Free Visitors Guide Complimentary comprehensive guide for visitors containing information on attractions, accommodations, dining, and events in Knoxville, available in print and digital formats.
• Visit Knoxville Blog Editorial content hub featuring articles about Knoxville attractions, events, history, outdoor activities, family-friendly activities, and local culture across categories including Arts & Culture, Family-Friendly, Outdoors, Food & Drink, Pet-Friendly, Festivals & Events, Music, History, Shopping, and Sports.
• Visit Knoxville Online Shop Online retail store operated by Visit Knoxville offering branded merchandise and travel-related products to consumers.

Quantifiable outcome

• Knoxville named 'America's Best Towns to Visit 2024' by CNN Travel
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• SimpleviewcoreTechnology or IntegrationSimpleview provides the CRM and website platform powering visitknoxville.com and the partner extranet (knoxville.extranet.simpleviewcrm.com), enabling event listings, attraction management, and partner access.
• Historic Homes of KnoxvillecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerVisit Knoxville partners with the Historic Homes of Knoxville (a consortium of seven historic house museums including James White's Fort, Blount Mansion, Marble Springs, Ramsey House, Crescent Bend, Mabry-Hazen House, and Westwood) to promote heritage tourism through coordinated tours and events.
• HABRI (Human Animal Bond Research Institute)minorOthersHABRI recognizes Visit Knoxville's Barxville dog-friendly tourism campaign with the HABRI Innovation Award, validating the organization's pet-inclusive travel and community engagement initiatives.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Visit Nashville (Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp): Direct peer — official DMO/CVB for Nashville, Tennessee, operating with the same destination-marketing model funded by hotel taxes and member partnerships. Compares because both are Tennessee-based CVBs competing for overlapping drive-market travelers and major event hosting opportunities.
• Explore Asheville (Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau): Direct peer — official DMO for Asheville, NC. Highly comparable: similar mid-size Southern Appalachian city profile, similar outdoor/cultural/culinary content positioning, similar reliance on drive-market leisure tourism, and competes directly for the same regional traveler.
• Visit Chattanooga: Direct peer — Tennessee-based DMO for Chattanooga operating within the same state tourism ecosystem. Compares because of geographic proximity, similar outdoor + urban positioning, similar event recruitment strategy (e.g., IRONMAN, music festivals), and same funding model.
• Visit Memphis: Direct peer — official DMO for Memphis, Tennessee. Compares as another Tennessee state CVB with shared brand-building reliance on cultural heritage (music, food) and similar destination marketing organization structure.

Broad incumbents

• Destination DC: Broad incumbent — larger, established DMO for Washington, DC. Comparable because it operates the same official CVB model with hotel-tax funding, member partnership programs, and content-led destination marketing — but at materially larger scale and budget.
• Visit Denver: Broad incumbent — official CVB for the Denver metro area. Compares through its destination marketing organization structure, sports and meetings commission, and content-driven tourism portal — though at a larger budget and brand scale than Visit Knoxville.
• Brand USA: Broad incumbent — the national destination marketing organization for the United States. Compares as a higher-tier DMO that Visit Knoxville coordinates with for inbound international promotion, though operating at national scale rather than city-level.

Regional players

• Visit Raleigh: Regional player — official DMO for Raleigh, NC operating the same CVB model but primarily serving a different Southeast geography. Compares on structure, funding model (hotel occupancy tax), and content-led destination marketing approach.

Others

• TravelSouth USA (formerly DMAI / Destinations International): Industry association — the professional trade body representing DMOs and CVBs across the U.S. Compares not as a competitor but as the standards-setting, training, and advocacy peer that shapes how Visit Knoxville operates and benchmarks performance.
• Simpleview: Technology vendor / platform peer — provides the CRM, website, and partner extranet infrastructure powering visitknoxville.com. Comparable as the dominant DMO technology provider and a key operational dependency for Visit Knoxville and its peer CVBs.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/visitknoxville
• Facebookfacebook.com/visitknoxvilletn
• Instagraminstagram.com/visitknoxville
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/visit-knoxville---convention-and-visitors-bureau

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Subsidiaries2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Visit Knoxville