SPOTLIGHT ON TOURISM AND FORGOTTEN HARVEST TWO 5-15-22

[Music] good morning today on spotlight the campaign to reignite tourism in michigan and across the u.s after that heavy blow from the pandemic what's being done in a public-private partnership to help chris thompson president and ceo of brand usa and david lorenz vice president of travel michigan will tell us and later on our sunday morning program exciting news for forgotten harvest what kirk mays ceo of the food surplus organization is ready to share with the public it's sunday may the 15th i'm chuck stokes and this is spotlight chris thompson and dave lorenz thank you so much for joining us today on spotlight from tallahassee florida and also from lansing michigan let me start with you chris thompson you work on the national level looking at the entire country i'll reflect back for a minute and paint the picture so that people really understand and hopefully you can give me some statistics what kind of impact did the pandemic have on the national tourism industry so uh thanks for allowing me to be with you this morning our focus at brand usa in partnership with our federal government is on the international travel side of things so in 2019 we had record visitation of 80 million visitors that crossed our borders into all our great destinations throughout the country and spent 233 billion dollars people don't realize it but travel is considered an export it's a the product is the experience and the memories they take home the money leave behind and nine percent everything the largest economy in the world exports tied to what i do for a living focused totally on international what we do for a living with in partnership with dave when the pandemic hit our our sector in particular was disproportionately affected uh pretty pretty quickly when we realized it was going to be longer than two weeks in a couple months uh our borders were shut uh as they should have been and we had to get on top of the health crisis and and the safety uh issues that were at hand uh immediately international travel was brought to a halt uh in that first year uh arrivals were down 76 percent internationally you'll have to real you have to remember it was march so we had a quarter of arrivals already and our spending was down 150 billion dollars so pretty much the international travel industry was brought to its knees and pretty much been shut down and that was the case for about 20 months until last november 8th when our borders reopened and that gave us a chance to do like we always do which is remind the world why they love the usa i've always said this has not ever been a demand issue we're no less aspirational it was really just the ability for people to travel they were challenged and obviously shut down from being able to travel sure well thanks for painting that picture for us dave lorenz uh obviously michigan is a part of the u.s so it was affected proportionally but how important is the tourism industry to this state how is it right yeah more important than most people realize travel and tourism is one of the biggest industries in michigan you know you look at manufacturing we're proud of our manufacturing heritage our current situation and our future with manufacturing and and such uh we are a huge agricultural state but that other third big uh piece of the uh economic puzzle in michigan is travel and tourism so when covet hit us just at a time when we were about to enter our busy season it really devastated us we lost tens of thousands of jobs i mean overnight and we haven't come anywhere near to recovery yet you think about it restaurants alone we probably lost more than 2 000 restaurants because of cobot most of them will not come back now many of them will will be replaced by new ones but that will take some time and the the kind of the repercussions of kobet now even as we're in the endemic stage now we're having problems getting people back to work and um and so we we have these new kind of challenges that just keep on ebbing and flowing and we need to get everybody back traveling keeping people from michigan here in michigan for a little while longer before we we invite them to go check out some other places sure because we need our economy back what's the mission of uh brand usa and explain that so people understand this public-private partnership and how will you ignite or reignite this tourism industry we are focused on on maintaining those 80 million visitors that come every year and that enormous amount of spend that they put in uh in our in our economies uh nationwide and in the all the states and cities around the country so our focus now that our borders are open we have a recovery strategic framework and basically we have three comms tests we're trying to accomplish one is to prove we're ready it's one thing to say we're ready all the people from the outside are looking in and curious about whether those experiences that they were enjoying pre-pandemic are still there welcome the world back is the second comms task you know there's been a lot of noise a lot of generational things that have gone on over the course of the two years of the pandemic uh again remind people why they love the usa and then the third thing is you know we're about inspiration fueling that intent to travel at the highest level of the funnel uh we need to do the best we can to actually push it down for instance to those that are looking at all the diversity of experiences that are in michigan and put that in the hands of dave and his partners to be able to take it from intent through consideration and into booking and that's ultimately what we're responsible for is to get our travel economy back to where it was you know we talk all the time about hospitality being a warm and fluffy kind of sector because it's all about vacations and on the business side meetings and events but what we found out is the things that dave promotes about michigan that make it unique from any other state or that he promotes in lansing or in detroit or any other city are really the fabric of those communities so not only did the pandemic bring our uh hospitality industry to its sneeze but it really uh brought the fabric of our communities to our needs so all the things that we enjoy and the reasons why we call the places home and the reason why we stay there so sure our job is to get us back to where we were right dave before we go to the break um how does this tie into something that we're so familiar with here in the state of michigan and that's our pure michigan campaign which did get some more money than in the state budget this year what is it you need from chris to tie into that to make this synergy work for our great lakes state yeah 16 years ago chuck we developed pure michigan as a brand to tell the real story about what michigan really is because as we remember uh in the past prior to that brand development people would think of michigan as you know the old negative stories that they would think about about detroit primarily and that's all they would know about michigan so we felt it was important that we not only correct those misperceptions about the beautiful community of detroit and the surrounding area but about the entire state that we tell this story to the world that we're a place with abundant natural beauty really interesting authentic americana to offer in our cities as well friendly people and an environment where everyone is welcome the lack of being able to be together has increased this misunderstanding of who we are and so travel allows us to get to know each other and breaks down those barriers of misunderstanding uh and and as we travel again we will get to that point again where we better understand that hey we all want a better life for our kids and grandkids that's the most essential way that we're all the same sure we're going to take a quick little pause for the cause and when we come back talk maybe a little bit about how americans attitudes have changed as well as foreigners in dealing with the pandemic but ready to get back out there and see the world we'll be right back stay with us and welcome back to spotlight chris talk a little bit about the projections that you put out for 2022 23 and maybe even a little beyond that and how you even project in the midst of pandemic isn't quite what it was but we depending on the area we see numbers starting to trickle back up so there's always that uncertainty even though people i think have learned how to live with this virus sure i think our generation has learned how to redefine uncertainty because there's certainly been a lot that we've never had to deal with before but as we were shut down and as our borders were closed we realized that there were a lot of things outside of our control that needed to happen for us to get back to any semblance of pre-pandemic numbers so the first was get the borders open the second was and i know people have noticed this and even felt this that once the borders were closed the airline industry was also brought to its knees so particularly international routes were either eliminated or scaled back because they had to there was nobody on on the planes now that the borders are open uh connectivity is coming back but the forecasters that are looking at just international travel and that's all that we focus on uh on our own when we're doing our brand advertising and in partnership with great partners like dave as we look to that as the forecasters are looking to that because of what it's going to require to get us back to levels of delivering experiences and the hospitality industry back up to full employment and full connectivity they're saying it could be 24 or 25 until we see numbers that resemble pre-pandemic numbers and then the uncertainty's still there the last thing you know we're starting to get rid of most everything that was tied to the pandemic that was influencing us and causing uncertainty of course the mask mandate being relaxed was a big help but the final piece that's still in place internationally is the pre-departure test that everybody has to do whether we travel outside and have it coming back or as we're inviting visitors here so we're hopeful that that'll be dropped and that'll be the last piece of uncertainty that i think is causing people to pause or not come and then i'm an eternal optimist certainly that was challenged over these last two years but i actually think the return will be way quicker than the forecasters are suggesting right now i know when our domestic economy opened up it came back way more powerfully and way quicker than all the forecasters were saying so i think that'd be the case for the international side too there were so many other issues that uh people are kind of waiting for some people still are concerned about covet some people just want to make sure that they've they've now had time to reevaluate life and they're questioning whether what they did in the past is really what they want to do in the future so we're encouraging our travel industry members to think about these issues to really communicate with their staff to make sure their staff knows that they are valued and they're doing something of value you know you know our industry often literally serves people we serve people that is an important function and we're trying to to kind of change the messaging and the thought about many of the jobs that that are part of travel and tourism that because you're a server or you're working at a hotel or you're working in an attraction you're selling tickets or whatever you're doing every day you have a chance to change somebody's life for positive ways or negative ways it's the people-to-people touch in the midst of all this technology out here yes yeah so we we really need to kind of double down our hospitality efforts and that's what we're trying to do and i do believe like chris said not only will the industry come back faster than people think that pure michigan is going to do fine and a big reason is because our employees and employers are going to be working together better to serve the needs of of everyone sure chris i'm going to give you the final word uh in the 15 seconds or so we have left uh looking back what did you learn the most from this unusual situation that when you look back and say you know what we learned something out of that that's going to serve us well in the future i think it's one of the things that's probably influenced in the whole employment crisis is going into it i realized i was a terrible teleworker i was a terrible remote worker and i think our organization and many organizations found that we could actually accomplish a good bit in that environment so i think one of the lasting legacies is trying to figure out how do we balance the hybrid world with the face-to-face world but i will tell you dave talked about the pure michigan brand being 16 years old i would have thought it had been longer than that it is one of the most successful brands out there at the state level really at any level not only just for tourism but how it defines what the state represents across all of economic development so with our great partners like dave doing that in detroit and in michigan and and all over uh all over michigan though we're looking forward to getting back to a speedy return well we're proud of it and uh we're equally proud of those awards back to back that our detroit riverwalk is getting uh nationally and getting a lot of attention uh chris thompson dave laurence thank you so much for joining us today on spotlight's pleasure talking to both of you and best of luck reigniting tourism and we'll stay in touch with you thank you thank you remember your trip begins at michigan.org i love that it's become embedded in our mind thank you so much it's a pleasure and when we come back we'll turn our attention to forgotten harvest an institution in this town and some exciting new news kurt mays will join us welcome back to spotlight joining me now is a very familiar face kirk mays ceo of forgotten harvest welcome back kirk thanks chuck for having me it's our pleasure okay everybody around here knows the forgotten harvest story it's one of the best stories in southeast michigan in the state of michigan but you're adding a new chapter to it and this coming saturday you're going to have a big unveiling open to the public of a new warehouse tell us a little bit about that and and what you expect with that well chuck first thanks for having me and thanks for asking that amazing question you know we've all been through a lot over the last few years and forgotten harvest has definitely been in the midst of trying to make sure that we're there for the community to make sure we're serving and getting the food in place where people need it along the way we've been having our own internal conversations over some years even before we were hit with the pandemic about what our vision is for our future and what it would take for us to really make sure that we make a deeper impact in the lives of people and we really wanted to figure out a way to mix all the food that we touch on a daily basis and get it back out to people in a more organized fashion and we needed a new facility to make that happen we were able to get it built starting in november of 20 and um it's now complete on saturday may 21st we're going to be inviting everybody to come out and check out the place what does this new facility do in terms of your capacity this will actually help us get up to a full capacity of 90 million pounds i mean wow you got to appreciate the fact that you know metro detroit is our territory of of service we are getting rescue food from available businesses around here so there's a side of our business where we got to find the food but we have the capacity for forgotten harvest to grow for 50 67 million pounds in the immediate and in distant future and have the type of resources we need in order to redistribute that food and make sure everybody in the community has what they need at a high quality and nutritious level more logistical type of equipment that will go in uh maybe perhaps even more automation and more space for all of the fleet of trucks yes so we're going to be transitioning from our our our old facility which is about 30 000 square feet the new facility is 77 000 square feet it allows us to bring the entire forgotten harvest team under one roof for years we've had a part of our administrative team renting office space outside of our headquarters we're all back under one roof now this also allows us to bring all the food back every day to one centralized location our actual headquarters home and actually do some additional work of actually gleaning through the food to make sure we taking out any of the things that shouldn't go out to the public but also taking data to actually help us figure out what are the right combinations of food that need to go to each of our locations throughout metro detroit so this is really a facility that's going to actually help us to transform the working operation and how forgotten harvest actually um places our impact or makes impact in metro detroit by each average actually going deeper by being able to get a greater equitable mix of everything we touch on every every day to everyone we serve throughout the entire community so we're going through the transition uh phase right now of moving in and then we're gonna be um really putting a lot of work into transforming the model looking at our routes and making sure everybody's going to have a little bit of everything we get on a daily basis from farms from grocery stores from things that come in through shipments from hydroponic growers we're we want to make sure everybody gets a part of those lows on every shipment to everybody in metro detroit absolutely all right we need to take a quick little uh break here we will come right back and let's focus our attention on what this may mean in terms of volunteers we'll be right back stay with us kirk may's forgotten harvest started way back in 1990 food surplus has grown your volunteers have grown but this new facility will this give you the ability to even leapfrog with that and have a whole lot more volunteers and maybe even more staff yes we definitely can sustain larger volunteer groups now before we were able to do one group of 35 to 40 at the oak park greenfield facility now at the new facility at 15 000 8 mile we could actually manage to do two groups of 50 at once so we definitely have leapfrog our ability our capacity to take on volunteer groups and as we get deeper into our model we'll actually be able to have additional volunteer slots because we're going to probably be extending the hours that will be working throughout the day as well so that does mean we're going to have a few more staff people that we need to bring onto the team to get the job done too sure i know you had a campaign goal where are you with that now we still want people to help us with that campaign goal there's a brick program that if you want to get one of those bricks with your name on it that'll be in our front um you can definitely get that but we had a 17 million dollar campaign and we're about a hundred thousand dollars away so if anybody is interested in helping us to get all the way home on that uh let us know uh give us a call uh 248-967-1500 and uh we definitely would love to talk more about getting this all the way home or a community effort everybody get some bricks come by and see the facility on on saturday the 21st open to the public right open to the public and enjoy this brand new incredible asset for metro detroit real quick final question it almost boggles the mind when you stop and think about the amount of food surplus that is actually out there and i'm not sure what that says about americans but do you see any leveling off on that or you just think it's going to keep growing and growing the food surplus challenge i do think that over time you will see more efficiencies in that people are very aware in the food industry about that and and in the end of the day you you know efficiency uh helps to um create margins for businesses right so i think the collective awareness of where the levels of food waste are or something that definitely is creating new bodies of work for people to figure out how to reduce that at the same time there's just a part of the food business that produces waste and you need services like forgotten harvest to be there to be able to not make all that um investment and all that time and that asset of food to go to waste and let's get it to some pick somebody who's in need in our country um but the the problem is unfortunately um is going to be increasing a little bit before we get ahead of it and collectively start to reduce uh the waste that we see in our country well thank goodness uh forgotten harvest is around and has been around for a long time and with this new warehouse you're obviously going to be here for a long haul in the future kirk mays thanks so much for joining us ceo of forgotten harvest and best of luck with your big open house this coming saturday thanks chuck and thank you everyone for everything that you've done for forgotten harvest throughout these years without you we wouldn't be able to help feed metro detroit and the neighbors that we all love in our community well you're certainly welcome i'm sure the community feels the same i'm chuck stokes we'll be back next week with more newsmakers in the spotlight we hope you have a great week [Music] you

2022-05-15 10:46

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