
Headquartered in Montgomery, the department's director and assistant director are appointed by the governor. Sixty-three merit-system employees staff eight divisions, with managers overseeing the personnel, marketing, media, publications, financial services, mail, communications, and welcome-center divisions.
The ATD operates from Alabama's General Fund, with an annual appropriation by the state legislature supplemented by a percentage of the State Lodging Tax charged for hotel and motel rooms and campground sites. The department promotes tourism nationally and internationally through advertising in print media, radio, television, and online sites. Most of this advertising budget is spent promoting tourism among southeasterners, because studies have shown that 85 percent of the tourists traveling to Alabama live within a 500-mile radius. State law prohibits the bureau from purchasing advertising inside Alabama. ATD employees write and produce tourism-related materials as well as travel-related articles and press releases. They also distribute press kits and organize press trips for members of the media, tour operators, and travel agents.

Working with its advertising agency, a private company chosen by the director and an advisory committee made up of tourism professionals and industry leaders from around the state, ATD plans and organizes special year-long marketing campaigns that focus on a central theme. For instance, 2004 was "The Year of Alabama Gardens" and 2106 was "The Year of Alabama Makers." The department provides support to individual travel writers who wish to produce print or broadcast stories about Alabama destinations.

Each year's crowning achievement for the department is the Official Alabama Vacation Guide, which offers readers a tourist's view of the state from the mountains of northeast Alabama to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Highlights across the state include Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville; Ivy Green, Helen Keller's home in Tuscumbia; the statue of Vulcan in Birmingham; Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile; and the Troy University Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery.

In 2017, ATD launched its three-year celebration of Alabama's 200th anniversaries as the Mississippi Territory, the Alabama Territory, and statehood. Events and content produced for the celebration were divided into three themes, one for each year: Discovering Our Places, Honoring Our People, and Sharing Our Stories. The department produced, in collaboration with private companies, a mobile app and book, The Alabama Bicentennial PastPort, that allowed participants to map out significant locations in the state and "check in" when they visited. Events took place all over the state and included a kickoff party in Mobile, a dedication at St. Stephens, a reenactment of even surrounding the first constitution in Huntsville, and a parade and concert finale in Montgomery. A series of bronze plaques celebrating notable moments and periods in state history were commissioned and erected in the newly created Bicentennial Park across the street from the state capitol in 2020 and unveiled at the finale. Additionally, the Alabama Constitution Hall Historic Park and Museum were renovated and reopened in a celebration that included the reenactment of Pres. James Monroe's surprise visit to the constitutional convention in 1819.