Tourism Vancouver has hired executive search firm Odgers Berndtson to conduct an international search for a new CEO, current Tourism Vancouver CEO Rick Antonson told Business in Vancouver August 21.
Antonson will stay at the helm until June 2014 at the latest, but may leave if a replacement is found sooner, he said.
"I'm going to pursue my writing career," said Antonson, who has been CEO of Tourism Vancouver for the past 20 years. Before that, he was a vice-president at Rocky Mountaineer.
"I've written a few travel memoirs and I want to write more," he said. "My next book will be on Mount Ararat in Eastern Turkey where I went on an expedition a few years ago."
His most acclaimed book is To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa, which the New York Times favourably reviewed as "one of the best books of the bunch" in its 2012 year-end travel book roundup.
Antonson also wrote Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street and Slumach's Gold: In Search of a Legend.
The book on Mount Arrarat is expected to be titled Full Moon Over Noah's Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat.
One of Antonson's biggest achievements was to help launch the bid for Vancouver to host the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games.
Tourism Vancouver, under his leadership, initiated the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Taskforce, which led to the new convention centre that Tourism Vancouver helped fund with a $90 million contribution.
Tourism Vancouver's board of directors has established a search committee to oversee the process of selecting the next CEO.
