The panel on tourism was an all-star lineup of local entrepreneurs — a restaurateur, a museum director, a hotel executive, the founder of a weekend markets and a theater impresario.

But the celebrity of the event, part of an economic development conference in Long Island City, Queens, was the one panelist without a neighborhood portfolio: an advertising executive from Lonely Planet, the travel guide publisher. The others genuflected.

“He should’ve been carried into the room,” Joshua Schneps, founder of the LIC Flea & Food and a community newspaper publisher, told the audience.

Lonely Planet made a decision in December that stunned many in the travel industry, even those deeply invested in promoting the borough. It named Queens the No. 1 travel destination in the United States for 2015.