Visit San Antonio Transforms Sales Team To Spur Convention Group Rebound

The Alamo

As the world reopens from the pandemic, Visit San Antonio is retooling its Destination Sales department to better capitalize on the recovery. Mario Bass, formerly Visit San Antonio’s VP of destination sales & experience, will have an expanded new role as Chief Sales Officer. Additionally, proven strategic sales leader Lance Wheeler joins Bass’ team, expanding the Sales department’s business development efforts.

“Visit San Antonio has done a tremendous job through the unforeseeable pandemic, and with these key updates to the sales team, we’ll be better prepared to make a stronger, quicker economic revitalization,” said Marc Anderson, Visit San Antonio’s president & CEO. “I’m excited to invigorate the rebound and make an immediate impact for our hotel and hospitality partners starting now. We are focused on short-term convention gains for our community and committed to producing results for a swift recovery.”

Mario Bass – Chief Sales Officer
Bass has been with Visit San Antonio since October 2017, most recently serving as Vice President of Destination Sales and Experience. In the newly created Chief Sales Officer role, Bass is the strategic business leader of the Sales and Destination Services departments and a major contributor to the overall success of the San Antonio hospitality industry, focused on building long-term, value-based customer relationships that enable achievement of the city’s sales objectives and goals, while proactively positioning and marketing the city of San Antonio.

Throughout Bass’ 25-year career, he has focused on creatively driving results in various sales leadership roles in markets across Texas and New York. Since joining Visit San Antonio, Bass achieved the highest annual room night production in the organization’s history in 2019; transformed the Destination Services Department from a reactive marketplace resource to proactive industry thought leader; and capitalized on post-pandemic emerging business segments with the introduction of a recovery deployment and engagement plan; among many other successes.

Lance Wheeler – Director of Corporate Business Development
This new role for Visit San Antonio is an aggressive sales development position responsible for leading business development efforts, and growing corporate market share in the large-scale corporate meetings and convention space.

Wheeler is a Sales, Marketing and Business Development Executive with more than 11 years of experience in the Washington, D.C. and Chicago markets, leading and executing large-scale, high impact projects and strategic initiatives. Most recently, he oversaw corporate convention business development efforts for Choose Chicago, where he secured conventions for future years providing $46 million in economic impact and increased short-term economic impact by $150 million (2018-2019). Additionally, he negotiated $148 million of first-time business for Chicago and was Awarded the “2019 Sales Leadership Award” in recognition of outstanding sales achievement. Wheeler begins his post at Visit San Antonio August 2, 2021.

For information on what’s new in San Antonio, visit https://www.visitsanantonio.com.