Louisville’s aggressive campaign to lure young professionals to the city moves to Tampa, Florida Thursday.
Since 2003, Mayor Jerry Abramson has thrown parties for young professionals in large cities. They’ve invited four thousand guests with ties to Kentucky to this year’s reunion in Tampa, and between five and six hundred have agreed to attend.
There’s no record of how many guests at previous parties have moved to the area, but Mayor’s spokesperson Chris Poynter says local companies use the event to find potential employees.
“Yum! Brands for example is going down with us,” says Poynter. “We have recruiters there that are working with Humana and SHPS and some of our major employers and they go down there and recruit.”
The trip will cost about $20 thousand. Poynter says most of that will be paid for by the mayor’s travel companions. This year, Tampa received its second consecutive ranking as the worst large city for young professionals from Forbes Magazine. Louisville is not large enough to have been ranked.