Barry Travis

Barry Travis is the former CEO of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. Travis is credited with bringing many major regional conventions to Little Rock. To mark his retirement Mayor Jim Dailey declared February 9, 2006, "Barry Travis Day" in the city for his thirty-five years of work at the bureau. Travis' successor was Dan O'Byrne, then chief of marketing.

Controversy was ignited in July 2007 when it was discovered that the bureau had purchased Travis a 2005 Chevrolet Malibu worth $25,500 - $9,000 from tax revenues and the rest from local businesses - as a going-away present without putting it out for competitive bidding. Travis and his wife had filed for bankruptcy only days earlier.

References

• C.S. Murphy, "Visitor Bureau Broke 3 State Laws, Panel Says," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 31, 2007.