Transcript:
Tami Reist: [00:00:00] It's not always about the money, it's about giving them the training they need. In a hotel where you've got a really nice hotel and the people that are staying with you are making six figures or more and they're making less than $20, they need to be able to take on a conversation and feel good about the situation. That's the whole reason behind this. I don't like people to sink, I want them to swim.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:23] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. As always, we've got an excellent show for you today. It's a good friend of mine. Her name is Tami Reist. She is the President and CEO of Visit North Alabama. Tami, thanks for joining me today.
Tami Reist: [00:00:38] Well, thank you for having me.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:40] Absolutely. We powered through the technical difficulties and we made it happen.
Tami Reist: [00:00:44] We did. That's great.
Adam Stoker: [00:00:47] Hey Tami, I'm excited to chat with you today. We've got several things I'd like to cover but maybe just to get us started. I'd like to ask you. We've got a couple of questions to break the ice here. First of all, what is your dream destination, Tami? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would that be?
Tami Reist: [00:01:05] Well, I actually just went on my dream destination and it was to the Holy Lands. I went for two weeks. I had a great time and great experience. I actually went right when the war broke out but it was wonderful to get to experience Jerusalem, Bethlehem, all those wonderful places.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:29] Oh my goodness. Okay. I've got to ask then, since you were there at that unique time. How did your experience change as the war breaking out developed?
Tami Reist: [00:01:38] Well, everybody was really concerned about me but I was like, “You know what? This is an opportunity of a lifetime.” I actually went with Faulkner University and some of the students there. It was amazing. I didn't let COVID beat me down, I just kept moving forward and we had a great time.
Adam Stoker: [00:01:58] Awesome. Tell me some of the highlights from your trip.
Tami Reist: [00:02:01] Well, one of the highlights was that I had to take six COVID tests during this and the CDC would change a lot of the guidelines. We had literally taken a COVID test and we were flying from Rome, Italy over to Tel Aviv. We started checking in at Rome and half of us got checked in. One of the tellers said, “Y'all don't have the right test.” We literally had to stay the night in a nunnery in Rome, Italy which was fantastic because I got to experience Rome at night, on scooters. It was really great and then we flew out the next day. Of course, I'm the one that had to go through all the search and all that exciting stuff, but we made it. Like I said, it was a wonderful trip. I encourage anybody to put that on your bucket list because it's amazing.
Adam Stoker: [00:02:58] You mentioned that you went with a group. You said it was with a university but what led to you joining the university on this trip?
Tami Reist: [00:03:08] Well, one of my best friends, they had the opportunity to go with their children at a very discounted price and she was divorced. She asked the school. She goes, “Can I take a friend?” They said, “Yeah you can take your friend.” I got to go with her and just experience that with a lot of the school that was there. They were actually there for two months. That was just one of the components. I mean they got to tour everywhere. I mean they went on a cruise afterwards. Yeah. If I could have two months off, I could have kind of sailed the world but I had to get back to work.
Adam Stoker: [00:03:53] Yeah. Those dang day-to-day responsibilities just get in the way, don't they?
Tami Reist: [00:03:58] I know it.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:00] Tami, tell me that obviously was a huge check off of your bucket list. What's still on there that you haven't hit yet?
Tami Reist: [00:04:07] Well, I bought a motor home right before the pandemic hit. One of the things that we're trying to do is to travel all these different places. We just got back from Out West Wyoming and all that but it's to travel with our motor home. It's a really good way. Our grandkids love it; we took them to Disney World in the motor home. It's kind of like having the convenience of home, but you're still outdoors. We're finding that it's really a great niche marketing. Initially, I thought it was just older people that had these motor homes but now we're seeing it's the youngsters that have it and just getting out and meeting people and doing fun things, building bonfires and building relationships.
Adam Stoker: [00:04:57] I like it. You've used that as a way to connect with your kids, it sounds like.
Tami Reist: [00:05:01] It is. In fact, my youngest son bought a Pop-Up on steroids, is what I call it. It's one of these that, it's not your traditional Pop-Up, it has air conditioner and all- a bathroom. We travel and it's funny because now the grandkids are like, I'm going to Meme and Pop-Pop’s, they've got like this house on wheels. We get all of our kids and enjoy them.
Adam Stoker: [00:05:26] Okay, the byproduct is a great way to attract the grandkids over to your motorhome instead of the parents’ Pop-Up.
Tami Reist: [00:05:32] That’s right.
Adam Stoker: [00:05:33] I love it. Well, Tami, I appreciate you sharing a little bit of your travel habits with us. I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and maybe what led you to get into tourism and where you are today.
Tami Reist: [00:05:48] Yeah, well this is 36 years that I've been in the, what I call the hospitality industry. I started out working for hotels and then I wound up meeting some interesting folks that believed in me. I started building hotels for this group of doctors. I was able to help them with eight hotels, building and when I mean building, my owner had a heart attack in one of the hospitals. He said, “I need you to finish these jobs for me.” I kind of learned these hard knocks, but it was really great because I'll never forget. I had a book that our general contracts had given us. When they would say, “Oh, there's going to be a change order because this cost a little bit more.” I go to my book one, “No, it's not.” I actually saved my company a whole lot of money because I was all my game, but I love the part of the building. I love the part of seeing something start from the dirt and build up and then training the people. I love seeing that our scores were very good. I know one of my courtyards got the Hotel of the Year award for the Southeast region and it was amazing. What you can do if you just put your mind to it.
I stayed in that arena for a long time and then served on many boards. One of the boards I served on was our tourism board. When the director that I had hired left, the board said, “Why don't Tami apply for this job?” I love the hotel world, but I made the switch because I knew that I could do more in this capacity of educating my people in the tourism world, that I could bring more heads to bed. That was something that I really enjoyed doing and seeing it flourish. I know when I took the Decatur Morgan County CVB over. I guess it was in six years we went from a $300,000 budget to when I left about $800,000.
Adam Stoker: [00:07:53] Wow.
Tami Reist: [00:07:53] Left it in good hands.
Adam Stoker: [00:07:56] Yeah, I would say so.
Tami Reist: [00:07:57] Yeah. Now I have a 16-county area that I oversee and, it's going well. We just got a great report card from Smith Travel. If you look at Alabama, North Alabama especially, we've hit every mark from our occupancy. We’re the only one in the state that has had the high occupancy. Of course, everybody pretty much with inflation and cost of rooms operates, rate wise has been great, in rate par. For our Huntsville Alabama area which falls in my region, we have more rooms under construction now. We're going to be adding 1511 room nights per night, just in North Alabama, so that’s great. Even though we’re supposed to be in a recession, we seem to be doing very well.
Adam Stoker: [00:08:49] That's excellent. Real quick, I didn't hear how you ended up from Morgen County Decatur to North Alabama. What made you make that jump to the North Alabama side?
Tami Reist: [00:09:01] Well, I had served on the Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourism Board on their executive committee and the director that was over it said, “If I ever leave, I want you to apply for this job.” I'll be honest, when she decided she was leaving and said apply, I wasn't ready to go because we had just done a huge development at Ingalls harbor. Ingalls Harbor actually, there was an English shipyard in Decatur, Alabama that packed up many years ago and went to Pascagoula, Mississippi, which is doing extremely well, still in Pascagoula, but we were left with an eyesore.
I took the eyesore, found the funding mechanism through lodging, and we created English harbor, which is a place that you can launch 10 boats at one time. There's a 35,000-square-foot open-air pavilion with a lot of green space and it's on our main way into the community. We took an eyesore and made it beautiful. We had just broken into lacrosse and all the different sporting aspects so I wasn't ready to leave.
I left and wound up, the person that took my place, I knew there'd be changes made and I just said, “If there's one thing that does not change,” and she said, “What is that?” I said, “Never stop surveying your visitors” because if you ever stop asking the questions why, you'll never understand the outcome because we're all our storytellers and we can tell our story but if you're going to really want to know the behavior, ask the questions and then read the surveys.
It was really interesting, the first survey she put out after a, I think it was a fishing tournament. She asked the question, “Tell us what you spent.” Their first answer was, “I bought a Chevrolet truck.” Normally we hear gas, food, went to the mall, but this person bought a truck. I said, “Well good. Did you tell the truck company? Did you let Lynn Layton Chevrolet know that someone because of your tournament brought the visitors?” She said, “No.” I said, “Well do that.” When she did, he said, “Oh my gosh, well we need to help you. Could we be a sponsor?” Again, I tell people if you don't ask questions, you're never going to know what could be an opportunity for you. From that survey and then relaying the message back, now she has a sponsor to help her that could save her money and actually help with other events.
Adam Stoker: [00:11:46] I love that. Boy, I'd love to see the economic impact per visitor on that specific event. If you've got somebody coming in and spending $50,000 on a truck, I would say that you average that out across everybody. It looks like a pretty darn good economic impact event.
Tami Reist: [00:12:01] It is.
Adam Stoker: [00:12:04] Well, awesome. One question that I thought I'd just go over with you is, you and I met, it was unexpected. I was actually on an in-person tour where I was taking the Destination Marketing Podcast in multiple locations. Even though you and I didn't meet when I was on that trip, I ended up meeting up with Melea and grabbing lunch with her and touring a couple of your destinations.
Then shortly thereafter I believe I had a voicemail from you saying, “Hey, we want to talk about this podcast thing you're doing.” I'm curious what made you decide to start your podcast. What's the experience been like? Then I'm going to have a few questions about, has anything surprised you as you've gone through that process? Have there been byproducts or benefits or detriments that maybe you've experienced that you weren't prepared for?
Tami Reist: [00:12:56] Well, I'm going to go back to, I feel as though tourism, we are storytellers and people get information in many different ways. Some still get the traditional brochure, which we do give a lot out. A lot of people like my grandchildren, they're YouTubers, that's where they go to learn, but adding podcasting, has become that added layer. I was speaking the other day at an economic development meeting. I said, “How many of you listen to podcasts?” No, my first question is, “How many of you have a podcast for your business?”
Out of the 50 people, there were probably 2, but how many listened? It was about half. I said this is a story. You're listening, why don't you get yourself on this podcast? I learned through a lot of the data when we were researching. I asked Melea, “Melea, would you like to add a podcast?” which really meant to Melea, “Would you like to add another job list to you? Well Melea, if you know her, she's a huge Instagrammer.
Adam Stoker: [00:13:53] Yes.
Tami Reist: [00:13:54] Oh my God, that is her forte. Well, now I have to tell you she is loving podcasts. Then to find out we received a MUSE Award, for our podcast which has been extraordinary. We actually gave her the award at our annual conference Thursday and just to see the gratitude. To me that is a validation, that is a big deal. It's an international award. It's a big deal, not only for us but for Relic. I would say and I say this to everyone, if you need a tourism podcast, you need to get with Relic. They're great to work with. I'm not meaning this- but if I can take an employee that had to add another job and yet she loves on Mondays to record these, that's something good.
Adam Stoker: [00:14:47] Yeah, I got to mention that, I looked at her Instagram actually today. I saw that she did a little photo shoot with that award. I thought that was just so awesome. I'm really happy for her because she's put a lot of time and effort and probably heartache at different times into making sure that the podcast is what it should be. I'm just thrilled to see your organization and Melea specifically won that award.
Tami Reist: [00:15:15] Yeah. We're excited. We want to actually put the little MUSE symbol up on our Relic podcast, so that it shows that validation, again that not only can you be a one-woman show, but you can do it and also win at it. I think that's amazing. I know there's a lot of tourism organizations that may have 10 people and we're one. You still can do extremely well with one, if you have the passion. Even if you do the podcast and you're not the one to handle it.
Melea is one of those that she's willing to help others to kind of get that enthusiasm going or at least to find someone that may be able to take that on and to help support companies. It's been great for us. We've actually been running a lot of our podcasts as advertisements, just like we would run, “Hey, check out this new trail.” To us they go to the podcast, they get to hear from the consumers about what's going on and it just gives a wonderful validation to come and see us, and just to check out the stories.
Adam Stoker: [00:16:31] I love it. Tell me a little bit about the strategy behind your podcast. Who are you speaking to? Obviously, you mentioned that it's storytelling. Who are you talking to and then how are you leveraging that in your community?
Tami Reist: [00:16:45] Well, she maps out. We speak with anybody from people with our parks, our state parks. We talk to our attractions. We talk to people like our baseball players, Trash Pandas making the playoff. Being able to speak with them, we're waiting to get Ben Lovett, who is one of the Mumford and Sons that has the Orion Amphitheater, which just got our attraction of the year. Just being able to get on and talk with people like that, it gives them that opportunity. It also allows them to be able to take this and link to their site so that they can share the story as well.
Adam Stoker: [00:17:27] Yeah, I love it. Tell me, what kind of feedback are you getting from the community about your show?
Tami Reist: [00:17:33] We're getting great feedback. People love it. They find it very interesting. I know myself, I told Melea, I travel so much, when she puts out new ones there, I turn it on and listen to it as I drive. I'll just find myself start laughing because Melea has this enthusiasm, she has this laughter about her and just listening to the way our people react to different things that they're working on within their attraction or along their trails. Listen to our ambassadors that share stories along the way and tips for people, it really just adds more value than a typical brochure or a typical video, it’s love. It's real. It's the human people talking to each other and giving them the points that they need as they make their travel.
Adam Stoker: [00:18:31] I love it. I love it. Okay, we've talked about the podcast, but when you and I had dinner down at Southeast Tourism Society, it was so clear that you've got so many major initiatives going on right now that there's no way we would fit it all into a single episode. I'm curious. Of the many things that you're working on, what is it that you're most excited about right now for Visit North Alabama?
Tami Reist: [00:18:55] I think there's two things that I'm really excited about right now. Number one is, as we talk about how we get our information, whether it be through podcasts or brochures, whatever, the same thing we're seeing is the way where travelers stay. They either stay in campgrounds, they stay in hotels, they stay in yurts, and now they stay in people's homes, through short-term rentals. We know that a lot of our DMOs or CVB Directors are reliant on lodging tax, that's how they're funded. A lot of our places that have diverted to short-term rentals are not getting that.
I worked with Shannon Gray, a friend of mine. We saw that the State of Alabama has around 32,000 short-term rentals and it grows all the time. We wound up finding a way to buy the data and to start sharing this with our communities. A lot of our communities have been trying to find addresses and stuff, so we found this company Granicus, that helped us to get that. Now we're getting ready to help the state of Alabama bring in $36 million worth of loss revenue to the general fund, about $6 million to tourism. That's one thing I'm really excited about. It doesn't cost a short-term rental anything, they're basically collecting the tax and then remitting it back to the state which is helping.
The same data I'm getting, I’m doing group calls and meetings with the different counties and cities so that they can start that same compliance in their communities. Then today we just found out we got a huge grant and it's to do training. I helped create this program called Flawless Delivery, and it’s where we take in our hotel partners. We put them up in a hotel overnight. They get to experience what the guest does, we train them on common pitfalls, we work together on issues and then they graduate.
When they graduate and they stay with that company for a year, we give them an incentive. The incentive is, we give them a $1000 package, so they pick 16 places that they could go. They have a choice, kind of like their dream place and I give them a report card and they inspect the place they go. It gives me that information back. We just found out we got the grant for $1.3 million dollars.
Adam Stoker: [00:21:36] Congratulations.
Tami Reist: [00:21:37] Over two years, again, it's just going to help build that rapport and help us train a lot of our folks that make up. They got a job and they just kind of got thrown in there, we’re going to take them and work with them and try to keep them to where they'll continue to be in this industry like I've been for a very long time.
Adam Stoker: [00:21:57] That's great. You talked about two things they're both of which I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about. Let's go back first of all to the short-term rental situation that you mentioned that you were able to find a company called Granicus that could pull the data for each of the short-term rentals that are in Alabama and you're sending that information to the state so the state can actually start to collect on the revenue. I think this is interesting because sometimes there's a little bit of a negative dynamic between the DMO and the short-term rentals because these owners don't necessarily understand how it all works. They don't even know that they're shorting the state all this money and like you said it's a cost that gets added to the reservation and gets collected, so it doesn't cost the actual short-term rental owner anything. I'm wondering what's that process been like of getting that data. And then tell me about the company exactly how they're able to pull the type of data you need so the other destinations that are listening might be able to capitalize on this, if you've benefited from it the way you have.
Tami Reist: [00:23:10] Yeah, we actually when I've been working on our short-term rental for years and then I finally did a study on Jackson County one of my areas they wanted a new hotel. Well, let me do a study for you and the Smith Travel report, when the study came out, they were very flat. Then we bought into what's called AirDNA. AirDNA they measure your short-term business, we saw we had a 41% increase. Jackson County went from having five hotels in 2008 or five short-term rentals in 2008 and they're about 350 today.
Adam Stoker: [00:23:49] Wow.
Tami Reist: [00:23:50] That's the reason the market is shifting and they'll probably never get a hotel unless somebody shows them both these data. From there I heard from talking to Peter Bowden from Columbus Georgia that they used Granicus. When I met with them, they gave me kind of a tutorial on, what all they do. I reached out to Nashville who was one of their customers. Nashville brought in $2.6 million dollars just in additional lodging in their first year. I don't know how they pull the data but from the data I get, I get all 67 counties in Alabama. I get a picture of the house, I get where it's located, I can get the rental history on it, I can get the owner's name and where they live. I don't think a lot of people realize again that we- they have to pay this but the reason I wanted the data was, I wanted the short-term rentals.
We're doing a tabletop book, which has no advertisement. All it is, is stories. I wanted that to get into those homes so that if somebody chose to go to Huntsville Alabama and stay if they saw this beautiful book in the home they're staying and said, “Hey check out Muscle Shoals. Come see Fame Reporting Studios and Jackson Highway.” It would be a way of which we can continue to keep our customers maybe spending another night or coming back. That was my true reason behind it.
The other thing is as I kept hearing and it's something we're hearing all the time, like the workforce. Number two we’re hearing about the fact that our rental properties are going away, where is all the rental places going? Well, they've turned to short-term rentals. Again, being able to say, if I used to, could rent a house out for $1000 but now, I can rent it for 300 for half the time you're going to wind up choosing, hey, less wear and tear, I'll do a short-term rental. It's not going away; it's something we have to embrace. By doing this, we want our short-term people to know that they are part of this industry and we just want to work with them. This is what I look at it. It is a win-win.
Adam Stoker: [00:26:11] Great. Well, everybody that's listening, I would take a look at Granicus and see if you can get the data for your destination. This might close the loop on something that we've struggled to figure out for quite some time and clearly, Tami’s happy with it. Nashville is happy with it. What was the other destination that you mentioned that was using it?
Tami Reist: [00:26:30] Columbus, Georgia.
Adam Stoker: [00:26:32] That's right.
Tami Reist: [00:26:33] We are the first one with Granicus that has done this statewide. I have to give all the praise to Lee Sentell because as I'm sharing with him and having him a part of the Zoom meetings that we had. When he heard how many we had and just like when you have Auburn football or Alabama football homes open up more so, in those communities during those days, same thing with the world games that we hosted in Birmingham. They had over 300 homes that opened up during that time for them to make money. We just want to make sure that money is being collected to help those tourism folks be able to bring more people to their communities and that's going to help the short-term rentals as well.
Adam Stoker: [00:27:20] Great. Well, the last thing I want to touch on here Tami is this grant that you received and the training that you're giving especially to the hotel and hospitality employees. I think it's a fascinating model because it's one thing to teach somebody and to have them kind of listen to you talk all day, right? Hear your opinions on how they should be doing things but then to immediately go stay with another hotel partner and evaluate what their experience is like, it's the application that really forces someone to learn.
I think a lot of these programs that are out there, these training programs that help the hospitality industry understand how to handle customer service. I think that's what they're missing is like how do you put it into practice? But asking them to immediately go evaluate as the part of this that I think is really interesting from what you've done. What made you decide to use that tactic of the immediate implementation or the immediate evaluation and then what have you seen? I guess you probably haven't had a chance to implement because the grant is so recent. Right?
Tami Reist: [00:28:31] No, I actually did two pilot projects and I had got a small grant to do one. The second one, we were not able to get the grant because they said unless your service industry is making a minimum of $15 an hour, we can't secure the grant. I said you know what, we're already in the playing field we're going to continue on with this. What led to me is when I used to manage hotels, I learned that everyone is different. We all do things differently and if we can kind of bring in our staff, let them be the customer for the day, let them stay in the hotel, see the common pitfalls that may be there, inspect that room, it brings a whole different way.
It's like I used to tell people if you see a spot on the wall and you continue, nobody fixes it, then all of a sudden that spot on the wall goes away, in your mind. When we did the first pilot on this, I'll never forget. It was a girl that worked at the hotel we were staying at and her remote didn't work, something very little. But to somebody that's worked all day and they want to watch the Bachelor or they want to watch something. Let's say they want to watch a football game and their remote doesn't work and they have to walk down to the front desk and then all they need is batteries and there's no batteries, you know the customer's hot now. That affects your guest service scores.
Well, she had been that person that would be, we don't have any batteries. No, we don't have that. She saw firsthand what that did and she said, I'm going to tell you. I'm going to make sure we have batteries. I'm going to make sure we have a remote control. When it happens to you is when you learn to change the game. Again, I was excited. We did 50 employees and out of the 50 employees, we’re celebrating one year, I'm getting ready to pay out $30,000 in trips.
Adam Stoker: [00:30:34] Wow.
Tami Reist: [00:30:35] Yeah, the turnover that used to be a whole lot more, is less. The great thing is a lot of these people that went through the training, they now have moved up into another position. That's what I'm very proud about. It's just trying to grow up our people and let them know. We invest a lot in the top brass is what I say, like the managers or salespeople. What are we doing for the front line? Other than saying we're going to pay you a lot of money if you'll come and work for us. It's not always about the money. It's about giving them the training they need, in a hotel where you've got a really nice hotel and the people that are staying with you are making six figures or more and they're making less than $20. They need to be able to take on a conversation and feel good about the situation, not being thrown out there and saying sink or swim. That's the whole reason behind this. I don't want people to sink, I want them to swim.
Adam Stoker: [00:31:33] I like that. That's a great finishing quote for you there. Tami. I really appreciate that. I appreciate your partnership and your experience and your willingness to share with the industry. If people want to learn more about some of the initiatives that you've talked about today, what's the best way for them to do so?
Tami Reist: [00:31:52] Well, the best way is we have our website, it's northalabama.org. On that, we have a We Care page. A lot of people have a LinkedIn, which we do, but one thing that we've learned not only do we want to market, but we want to give back and so the We Care section on our page breaks it into four categories, education, workforce, advocacy and wellness. On the education side, you're going to find the information on Flawless. You're also going to find some wonderful stories during the pandemic.
We did a campaign called, “Be kind” because we knew there was a lot of people in our industry that were being basically bullied or beat up because the lack of service having people there. We put together real stories from real people in the industry that shared what was happening with them. One of the things we say is everyone has a story, somebody may be going through something. Just be a little bit kinder in this world today.
Adam Stoker: [00:32:53] Great, great. Tami, thanks again for taking the time. I really appreciate everything you shared with us today.
Tami Reist: [00:32:59] Well, thank you. Again, congratulations to y'all on our wonderful MUSE awards.
Adam Stoker: [00:33:06] Right, our award-winning podcast.
Tami Reist: [00:33:08] That's right. That's right.
Adam Stoker: [00:33:10] Love it. Well, thank you, Tami. Thanks, everybody for listening. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please don't forget to leave us a rating or review, it really helps us continue to grow and develop our podcast and bring you incredible guests like Tami. Thanks, everybody for listening and have a great week.
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