Destination Marketing Podcast Episode 8: Falyn Owens
Falyn Owens: We've been fairly transparent in our office, I think, and that's been a huge thing that's helped us build a good relationship with a lot of the hotel partners, but also the activities partners and the restaurant owners who are super important. Adam Stoker: Welcome everyone, to the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host Adam Stoker along with my co-host Jordan Barker. Jordan Barker: Hello. Adam Stoker: How are you doing today, Jordan? Jordan Barker: Doing well, man. Adam, let me ask you a question. How are you doing? Adam Stoker: Oh man, I'm so good. Getting ready to get out of town on a little vacation. Jordan Barker: Where are you headed? Adam Stoker: We're going to St. George, Utah. Yup, renting a boat and taking the family out on a boat. Jordan Barker: Should you be driving a boat? That's my question. Adam Stoker: I will not be driving; I'm legally required not to drive a boat. Jordan Barker: That makes a lot of sense. Adam Stoker: I think my brother will probably take the reins there. Jordan Barker: OK, I feel better about that, cool. Adam Stoker: But outside of my vacation, we have a special guest today. One that I'm excited to have on, a friend of mine that I've been friends with for a long time. Her name is Falyn Owens and she is the executive director of the Garfield County tourism office in Garfield County, Utah. Their website is brycecanyoncountry.com. She also hosts the unverified March Madness bracket tournament in the country, and probably the most exciting one. Is that fair to say? Jordan Barker: No question. Adam Stoker: I said, unverified. Falyn, welcome to the show. Falyn Owens: Hi, guys. Adam Stoker: We're really excited to have you on. I think to get started, to break the ice we always like to ask a couple of questions, and I'll start. What, Falyn, is your dream destination? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Falyn Owens: This is kind of funny, but instead of like a destination, destination, I have like a bucket list of sporting events in my life. Adam Stoker: Let's hear it. Falyn Owens: I want to go to the Masters. I want to go to one Superbowl in my life. I've already been to the Final Four, so I checked that one off. Kentucky Derby, yeah. That's kind of. Adam Stoker: Those are good, those are really good. Falyn Owens: Yeah, I mean, I could go on and on, but... Jordan Barker: That's a pretty good list though I feel like, yeah, that's a pretty good list. I like that. No one's ever answered that question that way. I like it. Adam Stoker: Well, before we continue with questions, I think you brought up How much of a sports fan you are. I think it'd be a big mistake if we didn't bring up the Warriors versus Raptors game five that happened a couple of nights ago. You're a big Kevin Durant fan, right? Falyn Owens: I'm a Kevin fan, yes. Oh, Kevin. Adam Stoker: Oh man, has it been a rough week for you? Falyn Owens: Yeah, I've been in mourning, I don't even know how I feel about the game this week, game six. I don't know if I can watch or not. I just felt so bad for Kevin. Adam Stoker: Yeah, your favorite player's not there anymore. Do you cheer for the team still? Falyn Owens: Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm not really a Kawhi fan, but the dude has really big, awesome hands. Adam Stoker: But he did the Spurs dirty, right? Falyn Owens: That's what he did, yeah. And I haven't like him since. I liked him when he played there, and I haven't liked him since. Jordan Barker: Good times. Well look, I don't want to like go away from the sports conversation There might be some people that are listening that are like, is this not a destination marketing podcast? I might have tuned into the wrong thing. Falyn Owens: Maybe we'll have a spinoff of a sports podcast. Jordan Barker: Okay, I like it. Adam Stoker: The destination sports podcast. Just brainstorming. Jordan Barker: I like it. I think there's something there. Well, going away from Kevin Durant, shifting gears a little bit. Quick question for you, so along the same lines, you talked about all of the sporting events that you would like to go to as part of your dream destination, dream events that you want to be a part of. Is there a favorite place that you've been and visited before? And maybe it's a place that you always go back to, but do you have a place that you've been to that you've just loved? Falyn Owens: I loved the Oregon coast and I loved Paris. Loved it. Adam Stoker: Wow, Paris and the Oregon coast. Two very different destinations. What did you like about them? Falyn Owens: I feel like when I was at the Oregon coast, I more-or-less looked at everything they did. Like destination development, Oregon's really good at that. The have their signage is amazing, they have so many rest stops, they've done a great job. That was probably my favorite part, although it was really pretty too. I like road trips, so that was an ideal road trip. And Paris is Paris. Jordan Barker: Paris is Paris, yup. Enough said there. Falyn Owens: I think it was mostly the food that got me. Jordan Barker: The food. That makes total sense. I remember, this might come as a shock to some listeners, but I actually did go to school. I took a film appreciation class, it was fun. It was a lot of fun, but it changed the way that I think about movies when I sit down and watch one. I look at things differently than just sitting down and enjoying the movie. I notice different elements that I didn't notice before. When you go and visit a destination, being in the tourism industry, is it more than just “Hey, I want to go and enjoy this destination?” Do you check out all of the different facets of marketing and all that stuff? Is that different for you? Adam Stoker: Yeah, you brought up signage, right? In Oregon, not a lot of people talk about how they love the signage in Oregon. Jordan Barker: Right. Falyn Owens: Like brochures and stuff. When you're planning a trip, I totally think about “Oh, I wonder if this is how people plan a trip when they come to our county,” and “What could we do better?” “What do they do that works really well?” Yeah, I totally do that all the time and I think it annoys my friends and family. Customer service to an MO is like, oh, who did their training? That was amazing. Adam Stoker: Oh man, customer service. I want to make sure that we come back to that topic because you guys have done some great things in customer service. If I, at the end, when I say, “Is there anything I didn't ask you?” If I haven't asked you that, let's do that, bring that up. For now, tell us what got you into tourism and why you're still there. Falyn Owens: This is a weird story. In high school, in our county, we're very heavily reliant on tourism. I started working as a dishwasher at a restaurant in the county, then I moved up to a busser, and then a server. There were a lot of days that I was like, if one more person walks in this building, I'm going to flip. I didn't appreciate the fact that those people were paying my wage. I didn't appreciate the fact that they were having the best time of their life. They're on a dream vacation, right? I'm the worst person to end up being a tourism director because I was such a bad, bad child. Then, I just kind of ended up getting a part-time job at the tourism office here and slowly worked my way up to this position. Dumb luck. That's probably what it was, dumb luck. Adam Stoker: That's really cool. Jordan Barker: That's a cool story. You touched on your role a little bit. Obviously, we've talked to different folks on this podcast and I think even though they might have the same title, a lot of times their role and what their over varies depending on the needs of that destination. Can you speak a little bit about your role specifically at Garfield County and what you oversee? Falyn Owens: We're a really unique county because we have about 5,000 square miles in our county I believe and 4,000 people. Very spread out. It actually takes me the same amount of time to drive from where I live in Panguitch to the far end of my county, which is Ticaboo. It takes me the same amount of time to do that as it takes to drive from Panguitch to Salt Lake, so four hours. Adam Stoker: Wow, that's a big area. Falyn Owens: Yeah, that's how spread out our county is. Some people, destination marketers, have a membership or something like that. We don't, we just have to play good to everybody and keep heads in beds, I guess. I feel like at the beginning, when I first took over, that was always the mantra, heads in beds. It's turned into so much more because the tax base. Tourists bring in a lot of tax revenue. It's not just the heads in beds or the transient room tax that we collect. Tourists eat in our restaurants, tourists buy our gas. Tourists actually spend a lot of time in our hospitals. Everyone's getting touch in our area. Adam Stoker: That is a unique facet of tourism revenue generation. The hospital, we haven't touched on that one yet. Falyn Owens: It's true. Adam Stoker: That's a lot to keep track of and especially with such a large country. There's a lot of stakeholders there that want to have a say probably, and want to be involved. Tell us a little bit about your destination. What makes Garfield County unique? I've been there on several vacations with my family and experienced several different parts of the county. It's one of my favorite places to go. In fact, my wife said a couple weeks ago, "Hey, when are we going back?” I'd like for you to explain for our listeners. What makes Garfield County so unique? Falyn Owens: We have a lot of public lands; I think Garfield County is 95% public land. It might be 97%, something like that. That means that we have Bryce Canyon National Park, which is obviously the biggest driver. We're so lucky to have a national park because you say Bryce and they gravitate to that. The challenge, too, is that we have so many other things that are in Bryce, so educating people on things like Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the three state parks we have, or the two national scenic byways. One of our scenic byways just got awarded a three-star Michelin, Michelin Guide three star I think. Is that how you say it? That's a big deal. That's the highest stars you can get and they've never done that for a drive or road before. That's kind of the caliber things we have in the area. Adam Stoker: The amazing thing to me is, you've got the national park, you've got the national monument, you got the scenic byways, and yet there's so much more than even those top five, top ten things, right? I've gone and hiked a slot canyon there that isn't even on your top ten list, right? It’s fun to me to go down to Bryce Canyon Country because there's so many different things to do. Falyn Owens: Yeah, absolutely. The challenge is just educating people on all the other things to do and getting them to essentially take their time, slow down and visit everything we have to offer. It seems like people will come and tell us that the biggest regret they have is that they didn't spend enough time. But then, they always come back because they have to try the second-tier, third-tier sites, too. That's always an opportunity. Jordan Barker: Yeah, there’s always something else to see, right? You didn't get a chance to see on the first visit. That makes a lot of sense. You touched on being fortunate to have a national park. Tell us a little bit about the challenges that come along with that? Obviously, it's a huge benefit, it's a huge driver of visitation. Talk about some of the challenges that you have to navigate and what that looks like. Falyn Owens: Absolutely. So, the state did their Mighty 5 campaign, which most people are probably familiar with. That was really successful, and it brought a lot of attention to the national parks. Unfortunately, the national parks are quite underfunded and understaffed, so that was kind of hectic on them to have so many visitors. I guess the challenge with a destination marketer versus a public lands manager, they're there to protect the land, to protect the landscape, and we're there to let people see it. We want people to see it. We're on two different — Adam Stoker: competing objectives almost? Falyn Owens: Sometimes, yeah. I don't want to take anything away from our current superintendent, she is amazing. She's great, she's a good partner and that's a huge thing. I get where they're coming from, they just have different objectives than what we see. Adam Stoker: Well, I know infrastructure in a lot of cases is a challenge, right? You can't just add millions of visitors and not have repercussions. The fact that you mentioned the hospitals and the fact that they see a lot of people. If we had ten falls in a day at Bryce Canyon, could the hospital support that? I think those are real concerns. Do we have enough bathrooms near the national park to accommodate all the people that are there? I can definitely see a lot of the challenges that could happen there. Adam Stoker: I remember when you and I first met, one of the biggest challenges that you had was, “Okay, it's not hard to get people to come to Bryce Canyon. That's easy, right?” The trick is to make them not have us be one night on a five national park tour. Like you said, their biggest regret is not spending enough time within your destination. When you did that, you wanted to divert some traffic I'm sure from Bryce Canyon to touch on all the different activities and attractions that there are within your county. What is that process like? How do you divert traffic and how do you get people to not just go to Bryce Canyon and move on? How do you do that? Falyn Owens: I feel the Mighty 5 really did play a really big role, in that because Scenic Byway 12 connects Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef. Capitol Reef pretty much dissects our county, but the entrance is in a different county. That gets people down our scenic byway and gets people into our smaller communities — our gateway communities and then they realize, “Oh hey, this is the doorstep to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. There's so much to do there. There's so much to see here.” It's tricky to get people to divert, but we're lucky that we have all those other assets and all those other things that have helped get people down the road. Jordan Barker: This has been a recurring theme so far, right? You talked about the fact that, yes, there is Bryce Canyon, but there's so many other things to see, so many other things to do. You mentioned folks will come down and say their biggest regret is not spending enough time, and I think that dovetails nicely into one of your campaigns, which is the Take Your Time campaign. For those that aren't familiar with it, do you mind just giving a little bit of an overview of the Take Your Time campaign, what it entails, and what the purpose behind it was? Falyn Owens: That's basically what it was. Getting people to slow down and take their time. We did several videos and I think it was one of the first times that we actually incorporated a lot more of our assets other than just Bryce Canyon into our marketing stuff. We even marketed some of our print ads. They were Bryce Canyon photos and were actually photos of these other things too that said, 'Take Your Time'. We caught people with the iconic photos but when they went to our website, they were seeing how they could take their time. Seeing how they could slow down, seeing what else they could do, seeing what else they could see. We also had to have a lot of buy in from our stakeholders and our partners to get them on board. To tell people what else there is in the area to do to take their time. Jordan Barker: That makes a ton of sense. As far as the impact that you've seen from that campaign, can you speak to that and what that's been like? And how the campaign's been received from those stakeholders that you just mentioned? Falyn Owens: It's been very successful. We basically gauge a lot of stuff on our transient room tax revenue going up. It has significantly increased in the last four or five years since we've started that campaign. I think, total 15%, 20%? throughout the years. Adam Stoker: That's great. Falyn Owens: We have added some more inventory, hotel rooms, in the area and price points have gone up a little, so that does help. I feel like that’s definitely a way that we can say people are staying longer because they're spending more nights and more money and more tourism tax in our area. It's been very successful. Adam Stoker: The results are obviously the most important part, right? Pretty cool that that campaign also won Best Tourism Ad Campaign in the state of Utah in 2015, right? Falyn Owens: Right, yeah that was awesome. Adam Stoker: Because we did the Take Your Time campaign and there was a lot changing at the time because another thing, if I remember right, you guys had a large portion of your budget going toward print. The advertising landscape was kind of changing at the time, so not only was it a new campaign but also a brand new media plan with a lot more digital tactics and those types of things. That was a big shot-in-the-arm impact originally. And then the campaign was super successful and you guys got great results. Then, it was time to move on to the next thing, right? Which led to the Day Trips for Days campaign. Falyn Owens: That was our tier-two stuff. We got people to come. We got them to take their time, and now they could actually stay and day-trip within all our areas and see other things that they didn't originally plan on seeing. We developed a lot of itineraries with the Day Trips for Days campaign and did a lot of videos that were really great, that gave people ideas for day trips. We had, I think, five videos? Essentially that's five days you could spend just doing those things and there's plenty more than just the videos. Of course, we rolled that into Adventures for Days, too. That was kind of our more adventurous clientele, so not necessarily the families or the older people that just want to do a road trip, a drive, or a day trip. These were the people that wanted to get out and do canyoneering and do crazy hikes that last a few days. Things like that. Adam Stoker: Which is great because it really helped you drill down and get a specific message to the different personas that come to your destination. Really cool to see you do that. Was that a natural transition or was it difficult to move on from the Take Your Time campaign? Falyn Owens: No, because I feel like we still use the Take Your Time concept quite a bit. Like I said, it's kind of a Take Your Time overall, but Day Trips for Days and Adventure for Days are the second-level stuff. I feel like we still hang on to the Take Your Time stuff, but we've just evolved. Jordan Barker: You were talking a little bit about changing things up. As we think about Bryce Canyon, that is certainly really important to Garfield County, but there's so much more to do in Garfield County, right? I think some of the shift and focus that you're talking about is how do you then distribute traffic to some of these other activities and other things to do within Garfield County? It's sometimes difficult, right? When you got folks that have done things a certain way for so long. Sometimes there's a resistance to change or sometimes those conversations can be difficult. Just curious as to see what your experience has been as you started to talk about, “Yes, we have Bryce Canyon and we want to continue to show the world that that's what we have to offer here in Garfield County, but there's also other things to do here in Garfield.” What's the temperature been like and what's been the buy-in from some of the other stakeholders and have they been supportive of that? Falyn Owens: I feel like our stakeholders have been really supportive and really appreciative of us getting out that message. The downfall though, too, is sometimes when we push more on the other things and less of Bryce Canyon, we've seen kind of a shift that we're having less visitors at Bryce now. We're almost kind of having to go back to, oh, we can't just eliminate our biggest player. We've got to keep that relevant as well as all of the other things that we have. Adam Stoker: Totally makes sense and in that process of distribution I know that now the focus has turning a little bit back to Bryce Canyon. I'm sure that we'll kind of go back and forth this time depending on where the need is, right? Falyn Owens: Right. Adam Stoker: You have, and I've been in several of your stakeholder meetings, board meetings, and that type of thing. You have a wide variety of opinions, experience, history and legacy within your county. What process do you go through to get everybody on board because that's obviously not an easy thing to do when you got so many personalities with invested interest in the success or failure of the destination. Falyn Owens: Right. I don't know that we've perfected that really well. I feel we're very lucky compared to some of the horror stories I've heard at other areas with partners. I'm just fortunate that we have a lot of people that are really interested in tourism in our county and a lot of really great businesses and community leaders that are super excited to give you their ideas. I feel like our board listens to those ideas and we can turn those into action items, too. Adam Stoker: We had Lance Syrett from Ruby's Inn on a few weeks ago and he talked a little bit about the relationship that you guys have been able to have. I think, compared to a lot of the counties or destinations that we deal with, I think you've got a really good relationship with your hotel partners. How do you do that? How do you maintain such a good relationship with maybe the Ruby's Inns of the world? That’s a real major hotel partner but also maybe the smaller hotels that don't get maybe the first round of traffic but when Ruby is full, they benefit more from them more being full. How do you keep those hotel partners happy and a good relationship with them in the process? Falyn Owens: Yeah, that’s difficult and that's always a tricky thing that we try to be considerate of. A lot of other DMOs in the state of Utah always say they wish they had a Lance. A little background on that, I believe we have 2,050 hotel rooms in our county. 900 of them, 800 and something I guess, are at Ruby's Inn. He is a really big player in our county. We also, like you said, have all the other guys and we're lucky because I think that Lance is kind of led by example, almost. He's very approachable and so, other businesses are crazy if they don't take advantage of his knowledge. We like to get out our office and make sure that we know what's happening, we know what our product is, we talk to people quite regularly. We just developed a partner website on our brycecanyoncountry.com as a local partner page where we publish up-to-date information, road closures, news that people need to be aware of, and event information for the hotels to make sure that their front desk's staff understand what's going on. Also, grant opportunities from our office that we offer, and ways for other hoteliers to stay involved and understand what our office is doing. We've been really transparent in our office and that's been a huge thing. That's really helped us build a good relationship with a lot of the hotel partners, but also the activities partners. They're super important and so are they're restaurant owners. Jordan Barker: One of the things I've always appreciated about you is you talk about listening to your customers, right? I think we'll get into that here in just a minute a little bit more. When you look and reflect on your role and the things that you learned over the years, is there something that stands out that you said, “Hey, this is really important and this is probably something that I didn't necessarily expect going into the role, but this has been a huge learning for me.” Anything top of mind that you would say as a major takeaway as far as something that you learned? Falyn Owens: Before I started doing this, I had no idea how many politics were involved. Yeah, that's been one of the most interesting learning curves I've had. I had no idea and when you're dealing with a county that has national parks and national monuments and state parks and national forests, you're working with four or five different land management agencies that all have different agendas. You're also dealing with the locals who sometimes don't want the secret to be out how amazing our county is. Yet, we're thriving on tourism dollars. I don't know. It's an interesting dynamic, politics are. Jordan Barker: Okay, let me ask you this then. I don't mean to put you on the spot, so what is the secret than.? You've got all of these different individuals and entities. You've got multiple agencies that you're talking to and trying to keep everyone happy and keep the peace even though they have sometimes competing agendas. What's the secret to keeping everyone happy? How do you handle that dynamic? Falyn Owens: That's so hard, because I don't know that I've done that 100%. I think really being transparent, being open, and being honest, staying in constant communication with people and making sure they know and understand what we're doing. We were applying for a grant with the Office of Tourism, a lot of the other counties in our area are applying for the same grant. It's a marketing grant that essentially doubles our out of state marketing dollars. One of my favorite parts about this is we can ask for support letters from our partners. I love the diversity and the different dynamics that we get in those letters. We got them from the majority of our land agencies, but we also got them from the private sector, guides and outfitters, restaurants, you name it. I love that part because then I get to reach out to people and give them an understanding of what we're doing next year and what the plans are. They're all so supportive. It’s open communication. Adam Stoker: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good indicator, right? Of the sentiment of the people there. I think that's great. Falyn Owens: They understand, that if they're a good partner, it's much easier for all of us to do our jobs. Adam Stoker: I know one other thing that you do that I think is really good, is you do a kind of an annual, here's-what-I-did-with-your-money report, right? I think that report is really key, too. Because it builds the confidence with the stakeholders within your destination, too. Falyn Owens: Right, I honestly think a lot of people didn't even realize what our office did. I think they sometimes hear that we go to trade shows so they think we're going on these lavish wonderful trips. They didn't understand all the other things that we do. A lot of people still say, "Oh my gosh, it's summer, it is your busy season?" And I'm like, no, actually, it's busy year-round for us because we're working on the next season or the next year or our marketing plan for this or that. We’re working on how we're going to spend money, or how we're going to increase the visitation to a certain area of our county. Adam Stoker: Yeah, people don't realize that your Co-op application is due in June of 2019 for 2020. You're working six to eight months ahead just to keep your head above water. I think that's a good point. Falyn Owens: Right, and even with the tour operators, they're booking a year or two in advance as it is. Those lines of communications with people that are sending guests and visitors to the area. We have to be on top of our game on that, too. And making sure they're educated on what we have. Adam Stoker: Absolutely. Yeah, it's a year-round process for sure. We touched on customer service at the beginning. I want to go back to that because I remember several years ago when you first started to look at customer service within your destination. I thought it was such an awesome idea because the reality is better customer service means a better customer experience for the visitor. And I don't think the waiter at the local restaurant understands how it impacts the entire destination. So, for you to give that training and give that customer service training, it's not normally, at least from what I've seen, administrated by the tourism office. But it's such an important thing, that I think it should be administered by every tourism office in every destination. Tell me a little bit about what you've done, what made you start it, and where it's at today. Falyn Owens: A lot of this originated with the fact that I was a really poor employee, way back in the day too. I remember people coming in and saying, "How many miles to Bryce Canyon?" or, "What's the best hike in Grand Staircase?" Or, "How do I see the Grand Staircase,” “What's the best way to do that? I only have this much time, how can I maximize my hours and make sure I see something?" I remember answering that question a lot by stating, "I don't know." Now, whenever I overhear somebody say that in the tourism industry on the front lines, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. We developed an online training so that first, people understand why tourism is so important and why our guests are so important and that they're actually paying the bills. We put out a little whiteboard video, a bare bones video on exactly what happens when a person visits the area and all the chains and funnels that their money goes through. I don't think people realize that sometimes tourism funds search and rescue, the ambulance, and trash collection. Tourists minimize a lot of the financial impact on the locals and people sometimes don't remember that part of it. Sorry, that was off the customer service, but it's important for people to understand so they know they need to treat our visitors as the best they can. That's part of it. We educate them on the importance of the customer and then we educate them on all the things we have to offer. We don't want someone to be in Boulder, Utah and have someone come in that's coming to Panguitch and a person in Boulder has no idea what Panguitch has to offer. We developed quick answer guides for all our areas. We handed them out to all the businesses and told them to keep them at the register and let their employees study them and not hand them out to the public, they're just internal things. Make sure that they educate themselves so they at least have three answers before they say, "I don't know." There's a quiz that goes along with that as well and if a business gets so many participants in their business to take the quiz, then we give them a little extra exposure on our website. A little extra exposure in our newsletter. We give them a little sticker that goes in their window that says, 'Ask us how to take your time.' Then the customer actually wants to engage with the business, and they have the opportunity to see the entire area as well. Adam Stoker: Awesome. What have you seen or what have these businesses seen as a result of that improved customer experience? Falyn Owens: A lot of the businesses that have really embraced it have seen a lot of success. We've had several managers at hotels say, “Every time I watch this or every time I go through it with a new employee, I learn something new. I learn something new about a different area or it encourages me to find out a little bit more about the area as well. It makes me want to be a tourist in our own community and visit those areas, too.” Their front desk staff really have that knowledge to sell the destination and to get that extra stay. Adam Stoker: Perfect. That's really cool. It's funny, we could spend an unlimited amount of money and never be able to spend enough to tell a better story than people who actually came and had a great visitor experience. Millions of people come to Bryce Canyon every single year, right? We're spending relatively speaking, a small amount of money compared to the amount of people that come. They come because other people tell them by word-of-mouth, how amazing the destination is and every single positive or negative experience contributes to that, right? I love what you're doing in the customer service side of things because that improved customer experience can tell so much better of a story than a digital ad, a banner ad, a print ad, or a TV ad. I just love the impact that can come from that. Falyn Owens: Right, and it's a fairly inexpensive thing. To develop it and then to get the business owners on board, it wasn't a lot of expense. You get a high ROI for a lot of years. Jordan Barker: Yup, no question. So Falyn, I have one question that is tricky to answer, right, fully recognize that, but I'm going to ask you to look into the future a little bit. Crystal ball. Crystal ball time. What is the future of Garfield County look like, and maybe even more broadly the future of tourism. What are you seeing and if you looked out five, ten, twenty years from now. What do you see? Falyn Owens: There's another DMO in our state that always says she feels like we've become not just destination marketers but also destination managers. We need to manage the destination and we need to make sure that what we're offering is what we're delivering. I think looking into the future too, is that, with all these increased visitors, we need to make sure that we're giving them the amenities that they're expecting. If they're coming at seven o'clock at night, do we have any place for them to eat? I think in the next ten years, I hope that we develop that more. In the last five years, we've worked on increasing our shoulder season. We've definitely achieved that. I would say, ten-year goal, maybe we're year-round. Maybe we're legit year-round destination and people don't have to find a second job in the winter. Adam Stoker: Awesome. I think that's great. Really, we could talk all day. I think about the fun stuff that you've done at Garfield County and clearly have made a pretty awesome impact on the destination. It's been fun to work together in that process. Falyn, it's been great to have you on. Thank you for joining us today. Falyn Owens: Yeah, thank you guys. It's been fun. Jordan Barker: Thanks, Falyn and go Raptors! I know, that's why I waited till the end. Thanks a lot, Falyn. Falyn Owens: Thank you, guys. Adam Stoker: Well, this has been the Destination Marketing Podcast with Adam Stoker and Jordan Barker, and our special guest, Falyn Owens who we've really enjoyed having on today. I want to remind everyone that we have a LinkedIn group called Destination Marketers and if you search that on LinkedIn, request to join the group. We would love to have you join the growing community of destination marketers that are sharing insights, sharing experiences, and education, technologies that are available. And really kind of growing together. We invite all our listeners to join and we will catch you next time.
Page of
We recommend upgrading to the latest Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
Please check your internet connection and refresh the page. You might also try disabling any ad blockers.
You can visit our support center if you're having problems.