Paul Wilke

With feet-on-the-ground experience working on both US coasts and in Asia, Paul specializes in global tourism PR with a focus on telling compelling stories, garnering on-message media coverage and providing sound strategic communications counsel.

Prior to starting his own business, Upright Position Communications, Paul managed global public relations at Visa with a focus on the company’s travel and tourism business, utilizing their vast resources of spend data to emphasize the global impact of tourism to consumers, governments and the travel industry.

Prior to moving to the Bay Area in 2007, Paul lived in Singapore for 12 years, where he headed Visa's public relations operations for South and Southeast Asia, managing corporate communications strategies, agencies and messaging in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Paul’s strongest passion is in the area of travel and tourism. Throughout his career, he has specialized in public relations, public affairs and government relations around the economic impact tourism can make on an economy. Paul has worked closely with organizations like the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and Greenearth.travel. From 2008 to 2011, Paul served on President Obama’s Travel and Tourism Advisory Board (TTAB) and from 2005 to 2007, Paul was a board member of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, New York.

He currently lives in Mare Island, California located in the Napa Valley.

Paul delivered a talk at IWINETC 2015 titled:

Bringing Visitors Back: Lessons Learned From Natural Disasters>>