* Transcript: Erin Mendenhall: [00:00:01] We need to be able to tell the story that we are still growing, here's how we're growing and here's why we should continue to invest in ways that reflect these really recent changes. But that are being built in permanent ways into who we are as a downtown. Adam Stoker: [00:00:16] Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. We have a really, really unique show for you today. As you can see if you're watching the video, I'm surrounded by three incredible women who are in really unique leadership positions and we're going to talk about how they all work together to generate some pretty, pretty great success. So to start, I want to do introductions and we'll just go Kaitlin start with you and make our way around if that's okay. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:00:48] Of course. My name is Kaitlin Eskelson. I'm President and CEO of Visit Salt Lake. Erin Mendenhall: [00:00:53] I am Erin Mendenhall. I'm the Mayor of Salt Lake City. Sarah Lehman: [00:00:57] And I am Sarah Lehman and I am the CEO of Zartico. Adam Stoker: [00:01:00] Great and Kaitlin. I don't know if you know this, but you were one of my first, maybe three or four guests on this show four years ago. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:01:08] I know. I know. Adam Stoker: [00:01:10] A lot's changed for both of us. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:01:10] A lot has changed. Yes. Yes. Adam Stoker: [00:01:13] So, first of all, to get started, I'd love to have you maybe tell us a little bit about this studio that we're in because I've worked with a lot of destinations across the country and this is a pretty unique setup. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:01:24] It is, it is. So this actually came about during COVID as a way to kind of facilitate that hybrid meeting conventions weren't coming back as we all know. And so we built this as an amenity, but it has now turned into more of a community amenity as well. And so we invite anyone in and around the community to come and do podcasts here to do video, short films, whatever it is. And then a lot of our conventions will also use it when they're on-site, which is very cool. Adam Stoker: [00:01:52] Great. I'm assuming it's been a very good thing. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:01:54] It has been a very good thing. Yes. Adam Stoker: [00:01:56] Awesome. Well, maybe let's while we still have you starting, let's have you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to your current role today? Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:02:06] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm actually an anomaly, I feel like in the industry, I've been basically in destination marketing organizations for 20 years. I started as a marketing coordinator at the Park City Chamber when I was little. I started my first job here at visit Salt Lake is a director of ski tourism, which I thought I died and gone to heaven pretty much when I was 25 and then did some stints in between before coming back. But that's my background and it's just an amazing job. It's a passion project for sure. And I love everything about it. Adam Stoker: [00:02:37] Great. Well, congratulations on where you've been since we started having this conversation four years ago. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:02:45] Thank you. Thank you. Adam Stoker: [00:02:45] Mayor Mendenhall, I'd love to have you tell us your back story and how you ended up here. Erin Mendenhall: [00:02:49] Sure. Well, first, I'm really lucky to be sitting here with Sarah and Kaitlin. We do work really closely together as organizations, but just, I think also as women in leadership roles in this state, it's great to have friends like these around. And Kaitlin's done a phenomenal job with tourism, but the identity of Salt Lake City in the county and the state of Utah and helping us reach New Heights and even bring back some things like outdoor retailer whose home here in Salt Lake City had just temporarily been relocated to Denver and is now squarely back here. I came into public service about 15 years ago. I didn't intend to run for elected office, but I was kind of compelled to do something around air pollution that at times in this state in this valley is the worst in the nation. Most of the year, it's gorgeous here. But because of our bowl shape, we occasionally have some phenomenal air pollution situations and threw myself into volunteering, starting with a group called Utah Moms for Clean Air. And pretty quickly realized I wanted to be inside of the meetings that we were outside protesting and so evolved my way of engagement became an advocate and co-founded a nonprofit called Breathe Utah about 15 years ago and worked in the policy realm just really learning how to be as compelling as I can as a Democrat in this super majority Republican legislative state and moved some things forward on air quality and was encouraged to run for city council. I did in ‘13, I was elected and served, was elected two times. So I served six years and ran for mayor in the middle of my second term. So I started as mayor in January of 2020. And that kind of feels like 20 years ago because so much has happened and we've grown so much in four years, but I was just reelected in November. Adam Stoker: [00:04:55] We've all lived many lifetimes since 2020 Erin Mendenhall: [00:04:58] Dog years in a way. Adam Stoker: [00:05:00] Absolutely. Well, congrats, I don't think there's very many people that have an issue that they say I'd like to see this improve and can actually leverage that passion into, I'm going to earn a position that leads me to have the ability to facilitate that change. I think that's pretty impressive. Erin Mendenhall: [00:05:17] Well, thank you. But I think that actually most of us have something that triggered us to care or be interested or want more around anything and hopefully that's what's led us to where we are today, either where we've chosen to live our lives or which business we started or nonprofit we serve on the board of, I think, reminding ourselves what that passion is, that source and the core, that's the trick of what makes work not work. Adam Stoker: [00:05:49] Absolutely. Sarah, how about you? Sarah Lehman: [00:05:52] Well, thanks for that. Your story is very resonant with me in the sense that I'm a serial entrepreneur. My background ranges from biotech, pharmaceutical, medical devices, outdoor rack manufacturing. So after I culminated my last CEO gig, I was looking for something that was more personal, something that could combine human ingenuity and technology to solve problems that affect our communities. And I found this amazing company now called Zartico. And when I discovered that it was going to serve the industry that employs one in eight humans on this planet and is the 10th largest industry in the world. I said, sign me up. Fancy that Kaitlin was our first client. And when we sat down to meet, she said I want to be the most forward-looking DMO in the nation. And I said, challenge accepted. Little did we know that COVID would shut the world down a week later, but we both thrived and survived. Not, not only survived but also thrived for that experience. And then as a longtime resident of Salt Lake City, watching the mayor and her vision come to life, we're pleased to be part of it both as a headquartered here as also as a resident. Adam Stoker: [00:07:01] Great. So you mentioned, I mean, tourism is a passion of yours. It's what made you kind of gravitate to Zartico. What's it been like to go from having it be a passion to a profession and getting involved in the way that you have? Sarah Lehman: [00:07:14] Living the dream, Adam, we're living the dream. That's what I love to say. When you're an entrepreneur, the highs are high and the lows are low, but we're trying to do something that's never been done before. Most DMOs are retrospective in their perspective. They're reporting to the boards, what happened and we're trying to use technology and data science to help them predict what's going to happen to be involved with the future. So if you have a road map for the next 10, 20 years, how do we use data and simulation to help make better informed decisions around your visitor economy as well as your resident economy? Adam Stoker: [00:07:48] Great. Well, one of the reasons I thought this would be a really interesting conversation for the four of us to have together is, Kaitlin, you have the objectives you need to hit in your organization, your primary responsibility is tourism in Salt Lake County, right? And then Mayor Mendenhall, you mentioned that you got into politics because of air quality, for example. And that's kind of where you started. You obviously are responsible for now a myriad of issues that involves Salt Lake and so you've got your objectives here and then Sarah, you have a business to run and make profitable and so each of you has differing objectives and yet you're kind of coming together using Zartico’s technology to solve some of these objectives that you have crossover on. So I'm curious, like and you mentioned Sarah that Kaitlin was your first client at Zartico. Sarah Lehman: [00:08:43] One of our first. Yes. Adam Stoker: [00:08:44] Okay. One of the first clients at Zartico. So I'm curious like, how did you guys identify what you could work on together, what you could collaborate on and then how have you actually used the data that Zartico provides to be able to be effective in your roles? Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:09:00] Sure, I mean, I can start. I think that the compelling piece of Zartico is that it is that forward-looking piece and it helps us predict outcomes, right? And so I think that -- and it also helps us tell our story because I think that tourism gets blamed for a lot and a lot of times it's like, no, no, no, that's not our tourists. And so one of the examples I can use is that we have a lot of congestion in our Cottonwood Canyons. It just is what it is. They are in fact small canyons that are essentially a single lane. So what we did is we actually did a visitation study because the narrative is we have too many visitors, everyone's coming here. Well, what we learned is actually about 70% of the traffic in our little and big Cottonwood Canyons are residents. And so let's solve for the general problem. It doesn't mean that there's magically less traffic on the roads. So what we did is last year, we actually launched a pilot program called the Cottonwood Connect Program that basically is a private shuttle service that brings people up and down the canyons. It's been really game-changing residents, use it, visitors use it. Again. We're not trying to put the blame on any one group of people, but I think that it helped us to understand the who and where they were coming from. We also could understand what points of entry they were coming actually into the canyons. And so it told us where we should actually position the buses, et cetera. So that's something where we identified the problem, we were also trying to kind of manage a narrative and then also had an actionable piece to the pie that helped. Erin Mendenhall: [00:10:38] Can I add on? Sarah Lehman: [00:10:40] Yes. Adam Stoker: [00:10:40] Please. Erin Mendenhall: [00:10:40] Another way that this data has helped us is during the pandemic and actually towards the at the tail end of the pandemic if we can say that Salt Lake City had the most robust downtown recovery in the nation for a good long while there. And it was thanks to data that's showing where people are coming in, who's coming in, what they're coming in to do, where they're spending time and spending money. And we had a pretty phenomenal downtown experience. But because it was actually larger than 2019 even. We surpassed those numbers. It also helped us see that the economy shifted so we went from the majority of our economy being 9 to 5, people coming into town to go to work, maybe they went to lunch or bought a birthday present on their break for a friend or something. But mostly we were not getting much sales tax or revenue off of the people coming in to use services in the city that flipped. And with the pandemic, we now have a majority entertainment, recreation, visitorship economy. This is great for us. We want to keep going this direction. And at the same time, we're doubling our downtown residential population. So from 2020 to this time, next year, first quarter of ‘25 we will go from about 4900 downtown residents to 10,000. And being able to tell this story while we're still seeing some economic impacts and changes in the economy with interest rates and inflation, we need to be able to tell the story that we are still growing, here's how we're growing and here's why we should continue to invest in ways that reflect these really recent changes but that are being built in permanent ways into who we are as a downtown. Adam Stoker: [00:12:34] Yeah. And to follow up on that, I'm curious specifically for you because obviously Kaitlin comes at it from a tourism perspective. But I've got to imagine that some of the learnings as you're going through the data, gives you a light bulb for other initiatives outside of tourism that you may want to use this data to solve. Have you had any experiences like that, that you want to call out? Erin Mendenhall: [00:12:54] Well, one of my big ambitions for the next four years is to build families back into the downtown. I don't just mean Sugar House or the East Bench or the Avenues or Glendale, but downtown. We used to have many more kids in our downtown core. And I believe that if a city isn't proactively engaging in ensuring that families can find housing that fits that have amenities for kids that have childcare opportunities and after-school programming, then if that city is growing families are being built out. And so our ambition is not just to maintain the few assets and amenities and housing that exist today, but to grow all of those and tell the story of people feeling like they're connected to their downtown no matter where they live in the state of Utah. I go places or you go out in the community and people say, where are you from? I'm from Salt Lake. Oh, which neighborhood are you in? I live in West Valley. The identity of being a Salt Laker is broad. It's much bigger than our boundaries. The more we build experience amenities that reflect all stages of life and not just the young professional or the visitor core, it's good for the young professionals and the visitor ship. And that's one of our ambitions the data is helping. Sarah Lehman: [00:14:15] And Adam to add on to that though Zartico’s entry point was through the visitor economy, our data illustrates and illuminates both the resident and the visitor. And so through our analysis, we can see that thriving downtowns oftentimes have great big sporting and entertainment centers and it's very complementary to the convention center in the Sunset residents, their quality of life is improved through sports and entertainment. And it then also feeds into our convention visitors that are coming from out of town. So all of the work that the mayor is doing to cultivate a diverse economic bedrock within the city is supported by the data. Adam Stoker: [00:14:52] Great and to pay back on that, I guess, one of the things that I think would be challenging if I was in your role is I've got to imagine that with all the problems you guys are trying to solve every time you see a data set, it's, oh, well, what about this? Or what if this? Right? And you start asking more questions because as soon as you start to get some information, you want to get the rest of the story. And so I'm curious how when you're building a company and trying to build a product that can transcend to multiple industry industries eventually, how do you build that product and satisfy the clients that have continued questions and increases in demands while making sure that you're taking care of the company that you need to run? Sarah Lehman: [00:15:34] Love that question. In internal debate, we have nearly every day. The way we look at the work that we do with Visit Salt Lake and the State of Utah in fact, in general, is that it is R and D for feeding into the future of our product development cycle in terms of the most forward-looking leaders are asking those questions time and time again. So how do we build that into an insight that then is available to more destinations so that we don't become a one off consulting company, right? That's not our intention. Our intention is to liberate these insights across the nation to ensure that we are improving communities worldwide. Adam Stoker: [00:16:10] Great. And I think this goes into managing a destination as opposed to letting the destination manage you right? Because especially in a city like Salt Lake and the surrounding areas that have so many different assets, so many different visitors, so many different things that influence visitation. How do you get your arms around and manage the destination and not let it manage you? And Kaitlin, I'll start with you. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:16:35] Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, you build for quality of life first and visitors will come. So I think that that's where Utah has gotten it right is that this is an amazing place to live and because of that visitors are coming here. I also think it's just being I think really humble and being open to looking at the entire ethos if you will, I mean, I think that sometimes as destination marketers, we can get into that path of well visitors do this and they contribute X and it's very linear, but I think in fact, it's getting far more complicated. I think that it's a changing landscape and I think we just have to shift with that and be open to other ideas. And so what we've realized is that we can actually build we're building an event this weekend that's going to attract – Adam Stoker: [00:17:30] You should talk about that. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:17:30] Skijoring, ski rodeo. Yeah, obstacle course. Adam Stoker: [00:17:37] Just the ush – Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:17:37] Just the ush – just what you'd expect on a downtown street. Right. But that is an example where we found a need period for hotels. So they're thrilled that we're doing an event. We want to build on this outdoor adventure narrative and we want to do something that will shock and awe both locals and visitors and they can coexist together in a really beautiful way. And I think that is what's fun about this. And I think that as destination marketers if we can embrace that piece to all of it and just not put people in their corners of where they belong, that we’ll succeed. Adam Stoker: [00:18:14] I think it's a great point because if you have the information to be able to identify where the gaps are, where the shoulder seasons are, maybe looking forward to your point, Sarah, can we see when the gap is coming in, in visitation, we can actually start to proactively create solutions, events, other types of things that are going to benefit our stakeholders over time. And this is a great example of that. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:18:38] Well, that's absolutely right. And I was laughing a couple of years ago because I was working on some National Park things and National Parks are complicated in a lot of different ways. But they said, well, these visitors are just showing up and I'm like, no, they're not just showing up. They have these vacations planned for a long time. So how do we tap into that? But I think that the coolest thing that I've seen is that we are not able to articulate when our peak periods are going to be. And so if you are, for example, a restaurant, how great is it to know that you have this major event coming in and you need to staff up? Or maybe vice versa where it's kind of a slower week. And so, you maybe don't need as many servers on staff at any given time. So I think that's where this is all heading is to predict. It's kind of that predictive modeling of making sure that there's efficiencies. Erin Mendenhall: [00:19:27] I want to underscore the first thing that Kaitlin said about people wanting to be here, starting with the quality of life. And what are we 16 years, the strongest economy in the nation here in Utah? I think the secret's getting out and we saw a lot of net in migration increase with the pandemic and the hybrid workability. And it's really our proximity to amazing outdoors. Like, I talked to CEOs often downtown who can tell you how many minutes typically between 40, 52 minutes it takes for them to get from their desk to sitting on a chairlift and how many runs they can get in in a long lunch break. I hike in our foothills every single week. My dog's thrilled about this lifestyle. My kids have access to trails and parks. The pandemic said to us, you actually need to be more creative and what you were just saying Adam about anticipating when the wolves are going to be. Well, gosh, we really had a phenomenal pilot opportunity. And main Street was our big pilot space where 62 years ago the city and the community said we should make Main Street a pedestrian promenade and we never did it. And we haven't updated our main street in about a quarter century. And with the pandemic and the businesses along that space, we said, all right, let's close it every weekend for four months, all summer long and let you take that space. The tracks, train runs up and down, but no cars were allowed, worked with our downtown alliance partners to do it. And so now we've done it for four years during different parts of the year. And we have shown that the participating businesses saw 19% more revenue than they did in 2019. And it's that experience and experiment that's now giving us the ability to say we need to do this permanently and the data shows it. Adam Stoker: [00:21:22] It's a great example. I appreciate that. Erin Mendenhall: [00:21:24] Well, it's fun too. So you should come out. Adam Stoker: [00:21:26] I know I need to check it out. That's great. Anything to add Sarah? Sarah Lehman: [00:21:31] Oh, she's spot on in the sense that COVID afforded us an opportunity to see what the world was like without tourism. It was like our George Bailey moment, as folks have said. And the fact that Utah and Salt Lake City use that as an opportunity to experiment, it's just an indicate indication of the forward-looking vision that the state has in the city. Adam Stoker: [00:21:49] Great. And I'm going to come back to you Mayor Mendenhall because there was a big announcement recently for the city of Salt Lake that the Olympics are coming back. Right? I would love to have you maybe give us what does that mean to the city. And then we want to talk a little bit about the efforts where you guys collaborated to be able to tell the story that could get the Olympics back. Erin Mendenhall: [00:22:10] Sure. And I appreciate your affirmative nature of expressing the 2034 games. But we are in targeted dialogue with the IOC. Adam Stoker: [00:22:20] I’m assuming the sale. Erin Mendenhall: [00:22:22] Thank you and you can speak that way. I can't quite speak that way because in July, we hope to execute that contract in Paris right before those games begin. We're the only place in targeted dialogue for the 2034 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games that was announced in November just a few months ago. And we are really ready, we would be ready to host next week if we were asked to. And that's an incredibly unique position to be in. Another unique component of that and I think actually they're intertwined is that more than 80% of Utah's are in support of the world coming back here for the Olympic Games. You can't find another place in the world with that kind of public support, bilateral, political support, every city that will be hosting events has unanimous support from city councils and mayors like it's who we are. We're really good at welcoming the world, we love doing it. And the Olympics are one of those things. I think if we end up having this chance to host in 2034 10 years from now, it should become an ongoing and perpetual hosting that we have that ambition and the IOC knows it and because we're really good at running facilities and building sport into our culture, it is who we are.. Adam Stoker: [00:23:46] Sorry about the framing of that question. Erin Mendenhall: [00:23:49] Don’t apologize. You keep talking that way. It is okay. Adam Stoker: [00:23:57] Good, good. The question I have then in follow up to that is I actually remember when the Olympics came to Salt Lake back in 2002 and you still see, I mean, it's not like I've heard of places where structures are built or things are prepared for the Olympics. And then after it goes, it just becomes this kind of ghost town or that it's not an asset that's used. The assets that were created for the 2002 Olympics have been integrated into the day-to-day community usage both in Salt Lake and the surrounding areas. I don't even know if I'm formulating a question here, but it's good. That has an impact on me because it seems very unique compared to other destinations. Erin Mendenhall: [00:24:38] It is, it is economically we ran a successful games in 2002. But I think functionally and culturally we really succeeded. And you're right because some kids who are going to school right now, it's the middle of the day, they're at elementary or middle school in Kearns or West Valley or Park City or Heber are going to get off the bus at an Olympic training facility literally today. And some of those kids could be on Team USA in 10 years. We are using our spaces every single day. If you live in Utah at any given day, you could go meet an Olympian, you could learn how to skate from Derek Parra himself. He's training and running those programs. And he's in good company with lots of other Olympians. We had 30 countries and over 1100 athletes training in Utah for Winter Games every year, every year. So the center of sport isn't just a Utah thing, but it's magnetic. Adam Stoker: [00:25:38] They're already here. Let's just do it here. Erin Mendenhall: [00:25:39] I wanted to say though, you're right, Adam. The one thing we tore down though was our Metals Plaza. It was on a parking lot that is still today a parking lot in our downtown core. And it's my ambition that we have a permanent space. So for 2034 let us not tear anything down that should be permanent for our Utah and Salt Lakers to use every day. Adam Stoker: [00:26:03] I like it. So, in open dialogue with the IOC, how were you guys asked to tell the story? Erin Mendenhall: [00:26:11] Yeah. So that's interesting. I mean, our role has been more on the logistics in terms of making sure that we get enough rooms contracted and that we can point them in the right direction with venues and our convention center and that type of thing. So it was more of the narrative around the facility piece, which is huge. And so that was kind of our role in a lot of it. Sarah Lehman: [00:26:35] And just as the mayor is painting the vision of the future and getting ready for those Olympics when they come, we are also internally working on event simulation techniques such that we can input certain variables into the model and help us predict what the Olympics, the impact it will be where people, how they will consume the destination, how best to move folks throughout the destination to prevent congestion, predict amenities that might be needed. So we're also getting ready in our own unique data science technology way. Erin Mendenhall: [00:27:08] Yeah, and I mean, I can use a really good example. So this past year we hosted the NBA All-Star Game and this was sort of the first big event post-COVID and so we were kind of like we don't know what to expect. And so we actually worked with Zartico and we looked at a 2019 event that was held in – Sarah Lehman: [00:27:27] Charlotte. Erin Mendenhall: [00:27:27] Charlotte. That's right. And we actually were able to look at when the arrivals were coming in, when they were departing, how late they stayed out at bars and restaurants, how they utilize public transportation, how far outside of the convention space they were traveling. And it was really interesting to watch that. And we modeled a lot of our activations off of that report. Sarah Lehman: [00:27:48] So it should be no surprise that our hosting of the NBA All Star Game was the highest economic driving event that they've ever seen. Erin Mendenhall: [00:27:55] That's right. Adam Stoker: [00:27:56] It's a heck of a story for the IOC I'm just saying, right? Erin Mendenhall: [00:28:00] And there's more. Adam Stoker: [00:28:01] And more coming, right? Sarah Lehman: [00:28:03] Yeah. Yeah, it's great. We're in a really good position. Adam Stoker: [00:28:05] Any other more that you want to mention specifically? Erin Mendenhall: [00:28:09] I think that it's everything that's happening here. Like for example, in Salt Lake City, every plug the lights in this building, the 7-Eleven, the schools will be 100% net renewable energy by 2030 and we're going there anyway. The things that we're doing and with the insights that Sarah's been talking about that Kaitlin is leading from a downtown activation perspective is because we should be doing this. It's because we have a strong economy. It's because we're a growing state. We have a young population. We have high education rates in this state. And we love to have a good time and we love community. So I think that the IOC and frankly, MLB and NHL see what's happening here and the vibrancy and the vision of partners like you're hearing from today, it's very attractive and it makes us a good fit and a partner. Adam Stoker: [00:29:07] Great. And when you're managing a destination and looking forward, you can have a whole lot more forward-thinking initiatives like attempting to get an NHL team, which we've seen announcements about and attempting to get an MLB team, which if the destination is managing you, it's going to be really difficult to look that far ahead. So clearly, that's not what's happening here. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:29:28] Growth is our greatest tool here. I would take the challenges of growth and there are many, I would take them any day over the alternative and a lot of cities are facing that. Adam Stoker: [00:29:41] Can I ask you about that? Because there's a lot of destinations that listen to this show and there's a lot of destinations whose stakeholders fear growth and are somewhat resistant to growth. And so obviously, you're having a very successful run here in Salt Lake. And you're saying that growth is a priority, that growth is good for the economy, it's good for the community even though there's challenges that come along with it. Why is that so important to you? Erin Mendenhall: [00:30:07] Yeah, and let me let me be clear. You know, we have public hearings and we have plenty of people who come out and say, please stop, stop growing, stop with the road construction, whatever it might be. It's not that we don't have that part of our community narrative, but I'm an environmentalist. I came into this to try to improve things, change things. I come at it as a feminist. I want equity in the hub of city government. All of these programs from e-bike rebates to cleaning up our own dirty buildings that are 100 years old in the city, bike infrastructure, apprenticeships in the city for youth who are coming out of high school, reaching into our formerly red-line neighborhoods and bringing amenities that the market isn't naturally bringing it costs money, it all costs money. And when we have growth in our revenue, we can maintain our aging infrastructure as a very old city here in the West, older than the state that we are in. But we can also grow the way that we should in an equitable way that is ahead of the market, working with the market and predicting the needs of our residents. Adam Stoker: [00:31:22] I think that's such a great point because there are all these issues that need to be solved regardless of community size, right? We have the option of complaining about it but not having enough money to solve it or driving growth and generating the revenue to solve the problem. Erin Mendenhall: [00:31:37] I used to be a baker and I'll tell you that this is a lame analogy maybe, but I feel like growth is kind of like a hunk of dough. And what do you want to get out of it? You can make that dough into a loaf. You can make 16 rolls out of it. You could shape it into a braided wreath, but you got to get your hands in it. And if you aren't shaping the growth as it's happening, then it happens to you. It happens to you. I think that's where communities who may not have leaders that are willing to say, I'm going to embrace what's happening here because I know I can't stop it. Not really truly. And I think we can get more good out of it than if we sit aside and complain about it. I think those are the kind of communities that are struggling the most with growth. Adam Stoker: [00:32:20] I think that's a great point. Anything to add for Kaitlin or Sarah, should we move on to another topic? Sarah Lehman: [00:32:25] Well, I agree completely in the sense that at a company level, you oftentimes hear the saying innovate or die, right? You innovate or die as a company. And so I oftentimes speak within my own team, like growth is good because it brings a new talent. It brings a new perspective. It lets us re-invent ourselves. It let it lets us think about new things and add new benefits for those that are here today. And I agree that growth unmanaged is we will simply react to it. But there are techniques and leaders, namely the mayor here and Kaitlin that are embracing the growth that's happening and putting proactive plans in place that's really driven by the data. And also a vision, a master vision of where we want to go as, as a community. Adam Stoker: [00:33:07] Great. And we're seeing those results obviously here. Anything to add Kaitlin? Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:33:11] No, I think that a common misperception of tourists is that they come here and they kind of just do their own thing and they overtake a community, but really they're coming here for typically a purpose, a very specific purpose and they only know what we tell them. And so I look at and again, thinking over to the National Parks, Moab, they have a lot of over-tourism and it's like, well, that's because candidly, you've shown one delicate arch, the same delicate arch for 30 years. Of course, everyone's going to want to go there, you know. And so I think as that relates back to Salt Lake County, we have a lot of control over how visitors experience our destination and what they go to. And so I think it's our duty to understand what residents want them to find. What do we keep secret? What do we keep kind of like off the beaten path and we don't let that secret out, but we have a lot of control over that. And I think that's what people don't realize. And it's really true. Erin Mendenhall: [00:34:16] I want to mention, I think that our relationship with visitors is maybe unique as Utahns. another stat that I didn't throw out there yet is that we are the fastest-growing population in the nation, like a whole percentage point ahead of the next fastest-growing state. And it's majority net in migration now. It used to be our own kids. It's no longer that anymore. But it is totally common to meet somebody who's a resident here in the city and say, how did you get here? Yeah, I'm from Philadelphia. I came out here to ski for four months and I never left and we joke that there's something in the water that visitors are also residents. We are a place that has absorbed a lot of people who maybe didn't intend to make this their home but just love it too much to leave. Adam Stoker: [00:35:05] This is actually where a lot of communities don't understand tourism's role in economic development that it starts with a visit in most cases. And some people fall in love and make it a permanent home for them and then they join the workforce and then they pay taxes. It develops the economy and when there's a combative relationship between tourism and the municipality, it doesn't set that dynamic up for success. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:35:30] Well, I think Utah is very unique in that there is that collaboration and that constant communication back and forth and we just do a lot of things really well. But I always use that saying that tourism is the front door to economic development. It's why people want to relocate their business here or start their business here. And that's just kind of the fun side of things. And then they can look at the logistics, the tax rates, all of that. Adam Stoker: [00:35:59] Yeah. Sarah, I want to kind of pivot the conversation a little bit and start with you. I think it would be a waste if we didn't at least have the part of the conversation that I want to have now where I've got a lot of young professionals, a lot of women that listen to my show and I've got three of the more powerful women I've come in contact with. I'd love to hear some advice for those that are listening of how can women build a really solid career and get to the CEO position or the mayor position. Right? And maybe some advice for those that are listening and then how can like your relationships that you have with each other help each other grow into your roles? Anything you could provide there, I think would be really beneficial for our audience. Sarah Lehman: [00:36:45] Well, that's a great question. How much time do we have? Adam Stoker: [00:36:48] 12 minutes? Sarah Lehman: [00:36:49] Okay. I think one piece of advice, well, a couple of pieces of advice I would give to young women, including my daughter who's now 20 years old is, and I think this is Sheryl Sandberg's statement that your career is more like a jungle gym and not like a linear progression. And the minute you accept that you are going to go forward, backward, sideways, diagonal and do all sorts of extraordinary things, the goal is that you find joy along the way and that they build towards the future. If anyone had ever asked me when I graduated from college, if I was going to be sitting here in Salt Lake running a tech company talking about tourism, I would have said you're crazy. So the journey is wide and I think along the way the other thing is young women and including myself, quite honestly, I was just telling myself to do this the other day is to trust our intuition. I think our intuition is strong and even though we don't have the right words or perhaps experiences to put against that thought, I think we need to listen to it more and lean into it and then find someone around us that can help make meaning of it. Because if I look back at the course of my career some of the biggest business mistakes I've made is when I didn't lean into my intuition because I didn't have the right words quite yet. So that would be two pieces of advice. I would get to some young female– Adam Stoker: [00:38:03] I like it. Great. Kaitlin, why don't you go next? Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:38:08] I think it's really just finding your voice. I remember being young and not speaking up and saying my opinion because it was just very intimidating. And now I'm finding that as I speak up more and it's a process, I mean, I still have times where I'm like, I'm not going to say that, I always get the feedback. Thank you for saying that because that's what I was thinking. And so I think it is kind of that intuition piece as well. And I also think that just leaning into your core group of women, I mean, I always surrounded myself with people that I aspire to be and I have a lot of my very best friends that are kind of aging out of the industry a little bit that are 20, 30 years older than me. And I've gleaned so much just life out of them and how to approach things and they become a sounding board. And yeah. Erin Mendenhall: [00:38:57] I'm grateful that the archetype of women in leadership is expanding and growing so beautifully. I'm 43 and I've become really tired over the last 10 years in City Hall of people telling me I'm too young to be in my job, whatever that job has been. And I'm trying to always work with the vulnerability that we all have. And for me personally, as an asset. I can be as Kaitlin says, bold enough to speak up when it's a difficult moment or there's something that needs to be said or that shouldn't have been said by someone else and you want to address it. And at once be open to the feedback that I can get that I could do it differently. I could operate differently. I'm always trying to unpack any bricks that are handed to us as leaders of. Here's your problem. Let me tell you what your problem is, you know what you could have done better every single day and you could build a little wall around your heart. And I've watched some people, men and women in leadership wall off because it's too hard to carry all of that around. So my practice and you find your own way of describing it is to check in with your heart, unpack what you don't need to carry around and even better yet as it's being offered before you even let it in. You know, as Sarah said, your intuition knows whether that's true or it's not. And sometimes the truth is painful and awkward to take in and sometimes it's downright a lie. It's not even who you are or anything about you. You know, so lighten your own load by being in an active interpretation mode of what the world is offering you, be vulnerable and be confident all at once and you can do both. Sarah Lehman: [00:40:55] I love that. If you're too old to be running being the mayor, then I'm 51 and running a tech startup company. So I'm too old and I am about to prove them wrong. Erin Mendenhall: [00:41:04] I think wrong was just right. Sarah Lehman: [00:41:04] I was just going to say, I feel like the al could be is just perfect. Adam Stoker: [00:41:08] I love it. You know, your point of kind of not taking everything when you hear it because when you're in leadership, people are going to -- the blame flows up, right? And so in a lot of cases, you end up having a hard time stomaching some of that. And so I actually really appreciate that advice. Erin Mendenhall: [00:41:27] I think with the like reluctance of stereotyping, in my experience, women, in particular, feel like we need to take whatever's off, what opinions are offered, we need to listen to it, we need to absorb it, sit with it. The level of opinion and toxicity sometimes is more than anyone could take into their heart and sit with. So being the confident part of yourself is to know what is and is not. And the vulnerability part is then working with what really truly is. Adam Stoker: [00:42:01] Great. I love that. I'd like to we've only got a few minutes left here and I'd like to wrap it up with, if you could give what you feel like is your single most important piece of advice for other destinations or municipalities or organizations going through some of the challenges that you've navigated, what would that advice be? Erin Mendenhall: [00:42:23] I actually, I think it's the same as what we just talked about, be vulnerable. Embrace what is. If growth is happening in your city, get your hands into it. Figure out how to make it uniquely who your community is. What their needs are. Like you need more affordable housing, you need more revenue for opioid treatment centers, I don't know what your community needs, but you do. And find a way because when you're an active engagement, when you're showing up as a partner and you're staying positive through the hard conversations because you believe there's something worth staying in that conversation for, you're going to get more good out of whatever is happening in your community than you would. If you said this is too hard, I'm going to walk away. So vulnerability and confidence at once. Adam Stoker: [00:43:07] It's great advice. Kaitlin, Sarah? Sarah Lehman: [00:43:09] Well, we almost work with 400 destinations within the nation and what we see, I mean, certainly Visit Salt Lake is a microcosm of the best. And what you see here is data-driven insights, stakeholder management, collaboration, vulnerable discussions around where we want to go and the challenges that we need to work through. Oftentimes the obstacle is the way, right? You have to go through it in order to reach your transformation. And so the recommendations we make across all of our clients is to lean into using what we have at our disposal in order to drive the future. Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:43:47] And I think the culture that we've built to visit Salt Lake is a judgment-free zone. So we do these ideations. We'll just pick a topic like this is how Saurian came about, just throw all the wild and crazy ideas at the wall and then you see what sticks and then our mantra is just, fail fast. You know? So if it's not working, you can pull the plug on something really quickly, but you're never going to know if you don't try. And so I think it's having the courage to make change. Adam Stoker: [00:44:15] That's great advice, especially in the Destination Marketing industry because I think there's a little bit of resistance to try something new to make a change for fear of failure, especially sometimes with the way our funding structure is set up, failure can be a big problem for our careers, right? And so even though it's painful and sometimes difficult, I think that's great advice. Well, I really appreciate each of you taking the time to spend some time with me today on the Destination Marketing Podcast. If people want to learn more about each of you, I'll start with Kaitlin, what's the best way for people to do so? Kaitlin Eskelson: [00:44:48] Yeah, reach out any time I love to chat, especially in this realm. My email is keskelson@visitsaltlake.com and would love to chat. Adam Stoker: [00:44:58] Perfect. Mayor Mendenhall? Erin Mendenhall: [00:45:00] @slcmayor or you can email me mayor@slcgov.com. Adam Stoker: [00:45:05] Perfect. Sarah Lehman: [00:45:06] sarah.lehman@zartico.com. Adam Stoker: [00:45:09] Great. Thanks again to all three of you really, really appreciate it. This has been an amazing conversation and thanks to everybody that listened. If you enjoyed the episode, please don't forget to leave us a rating or a review that helps us continue to bring you amazing guests like these ladies here that have joined me today. Thanks, everybody and have a great week. [End of transcript]
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