John Lambeth, Civitas’ Founder & President, specializes in developing unique funding strategies for tourism and travel promotion. He has over 20 years’ experience working with destination organizations and state travel offices. He has assisted with formation and renewal of over 125 improvement districts, including over 80 tourism districts. He is the expert in tourism district creation: adopting enabling legislation, building support among tourism businesses and electeds, and guiding the formation process. He has written legislation for eight states, and assisted with legislation in El Salvador and Brazil. Mr. Lambeth is working on travel funding projects throughout the United States with ongoing projects in twelve states. John was the 2014 recipient of the Cal Travel Promotion and Advancement of Tourism Award. 

Mr. Lambeth is a frequent speaker on tourism districts who has presented at conferences hosted by Visit England, the National Gathering of Brazilian Cities in the City of Maringa, Brazil, ISHAE, Destinations International, CalTravel, US Travel, the Association of Town & City Management in Ballymena, Ireland, and at the 10th Annual BID gathering in Edinburgh, Scotland. He and his firm have been recognized as a national leader in the development and implementation of revolutionary financing mechanisms for marketing. He was recently featured in a Forbes article for his efforts to transform marketing funding models.