About Us
TTRA Texas is a not-for-profit organization aimed at improving the travel and tourism industry in Texas through education, publications and networking activities. The current board members are:
Lisa K Ross
Texas Chapter TTRA – President
Lisa Ross has been Customer Sales and Information Coordinator for the Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau (ICVB) for six years. Currently, she maintains the database for the Sales and Convention Services departments, manages the internal audit system and keeps the office research and benchmarking of statistics for all ICVB departments. Ross is on the Health Fitness Committee and the Census 2010 Committee for the City of Irving, and has also become certified as a Tourism Ambassador through the Dallas Fort Worth Area Tourism Council. At the Irving Hospitality Industry Annual Meeting, Ross was presented with the ICVB “Outstanding Service Award,” which is given to a bureau staff member who has consistently gone “above and beyond” throughout the past year.
A recent foray into the area of social responsibility has Ross working with Texas Instruments and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in pulling together a 5K walk to raise awareness and funds for the cause. Ross has a Bachelor of Business Management degree from the University of Texas-Austin and is married to Wayne Lovell. The couple has a married daughter and two grandchildren.
Louri O’Leary
Texas Chapter TTRA – Vice President
Since 2003, O’Leary has worked in the Office of the Governor Economic Development & Tourism Division in all three tourism programs: research, marketing and advertising. Currently O’Leary manages the research program area which doubled its funding in fiscal year 2009. The additional research data obtained includes: annual economic impact for regions and MSAs; city level economic impact data for more than 100 cities; an airline database; additional international traveler data; updated and redefined the hotel price brackets for the hotel database; and updated the 1999 publications and created a website for the Developing Tourism in Your Community and Sources of Assistance for Tourism in Texas.
O’Leary earned a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Texas at Arlington and earned a Masters of Education Administration with a Mid Management certification from Texas State University. O’Leary is married to Jim Harrison who is the Director of Intergovernmental Relations at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Dr. Ulrike Gretzel
Texas Chapter TTRA – Treasurer/Secretary
Dr. Ulrike Gretzel is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Recreation, Park & Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University and Director of the Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism. Gretzel received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds a Masters degree in International Business from the Vienna University for Economics and Business Administration.
Gretzel’s research focuses on persuasion in human-technology interaction, the representation and strategic marketing of sensory and emotional aspects of tourism experiences, and issues related to the development and use of intelligent systems in tourism to support travelers' information search and decision-making processes. In addition, Gretzel studies the motivations, attitudes and behaviors of consumer communities, including RV travelers.
Over the past 10 years, Gretzel has been involved in research projects supported by the European Union, the National Science Foundation, the Canadian Tourism Commission, the Austrian National Tourism Office, the Korea Tourism Organization, Padre Island National Seashore, Parks Canada, Austrian Airlines, the Federation of European City Tourism Offices, Tripadvisor.com, the states of Illinois and New Hampshire, as well as several local destination marketing organizations in the US and Canada.