The GNARly Vlog: Using Outdoor Recreation to Diversify a Rural Economy in White Pine County, NV

[Music] all right so this is the presentation that I did make at the national outdoor recreation conference as well as the Mountain West Trail Summit so it is a case study in planned growth and Community Development through outdoor recreation assets and this again is just a case study on the community-driven effort that um White Pine County and the communities within it have made to try to see economic growth and and quality of life increase so just a quick introduction I am the director of Tourism for White Pine County so that covers uh communities uh within the county I also sit on the Travel Nevada marketing committee I'm also the president of the Nevada outdoor business Coalition board the president of the Pony Express territory which is a regional marketing Consortium that covers the whole highway 50 Corridor I'm also a member of the white pine Main Street board the great Bas and trails Alliance I coach the junior mountain bike team and uh also sit on the museum board so even though tourism director uh tourism very much is the tip of the spear for economic development and so there's a number of different hats that are worn when you're in this position in case anybody's never been to elely or White Pine County before it's the green star that's on the map there we are at the Eastern end of Nevada on right by the Utah border we're at the intersection of three so Highway 50 which is known as the loneliest Road in America uh Highway Six which is the actual loneliest Road in America and Highway 93 which runs north and south so the joke when I moved out here was do you like to drive four hours because that's what it's going to take to get anywhere we are the most remote community in the lower 48 we're so remote we're not even considered rural we're actually Frontier so uh even though we're not really close to anybody in particular we are 4 hours from Las Vegas Cedar City St George Salt Lake City Twin Falls and if you want to drive a little bit further five hours will get you over to Lake Tahoe and Reno and Carson City so uh we're kind of Central in the west and I always like to say you know you kind of have to drive through elely at least twice to get to wherever you're going one of the things that's going to play in a little bit later into this presentation and I just want you all to know uh you know Nevada has a reputation of being uh just Sagebrush valleys and dyed desert uh landscapes in White Pine County that's not the case we are the most mountainous County in the most mountainous state so we are surrounded and conation of Peaks that are 10,000 feet and above and and really they're more 11 12 and 13,000 foot Peaks when you get out here so a great asset to have and uh something that we're going to be leaning into for this kind of like rebranding so a quick history on El and White Pine County originally it was an outpost stop on one of the routes to California during the gold rush and after that the Pony Express route developed running right through the county in a Long Highway 50 the first transcontinental Telegraph uh put the Pony Express out of business just two years later that ran almost the exact same route through White Pine County and then the Lincoln Highway which is America's first transcontinental Highway connecting San Francisco and um Annapolis Maryland on the country's first road trip and so that came through so there was a lot of first in transportation and communication that came through elely before coer was discovered in 1903 and that was right at the time where electricity was starting to become more common in homes Across America especially in the bigger cities like New York and Washington DC Chicago places like that and it was eely copper that was stretched into the wire that electrified the nation uh to do that there had to be a number of people recruited to uh to the area so this was right at the time when Europe was about to descend into World War I um and so there was a lot of people uh that were wanting to immigrate over to America to be a part of this great American Experience this Melting Pot and El did become one of the most culturally diverse communities in the country as well as one of the most important ones because of this push to Electrify a nation and then in 1978 and this is a common story across the country whether you are from a coal mining community in Pennsylvania West Virginia which is where I'm originally from whether you know automobile industry up in the midwest whether it was the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest our copper industry busted and the mine shut down and 2,000 people up at left and this is really what makes the Community start to deteriorate is the loss of people power and these are your these are your teachers these are your nurses these are the people that are essentially volunteering for coaches and shopping at your businesses midweek and things like that so that loss of people power any community that experiences that Exodus is going to be left with a particular trauma and a particular set of problems of being told hey pack it up you're the next ghost town in the making which is what El was told now it's normal for people that are experiencing you know or communities experiencing any kind of trauma like that to go into survival mode and that is a that is a something that humans do across the board and honestly in White Pine County this community does survival mode better than anybody else I've ever seen it's amazing how the community kept its Fabric and stayed tight-knit with the remaining people that were left here but it's not a total sob story because the community had a lot of assets and a lot of things that it was doing at first in the state that became its cornerstones for its tourism and tourism became what the community leaned into when mining was no longer an option and so the community started promoting itself as a historic mining town with a train and a national Park and those are two great anchors right there and we'll dive into those a little bit more but in 1999 elely was the first community in NADA to use murals as an economic development strategy and you would think Reno or Las Vegas would have gotten to that first but it was actually elely as a way to say we're going to tell our story story of all the cultures and the contributions that were made from this community and we're going to put it up on the walls of all of our buildings in the downtown like the pages of a story book and it's either going to keep uh Community Pride high or we are going to be the prettiest ghost town in Nevada and thankfully it kept Community Pride high and uh we're certainly not dead yet so uh another benefit of kind of going to sleep for so many years say from 78 to 2004 is that the community really hadn't been altered if you still have your Historic downtown or buildings that that have kept its time period architecture that's benefit that's an asset when a lot of places bulldozed their buildings and put up strip malls and generic boxy architecture elen White Pine County still has kept its character now it's run down in some areas it could use a Fresh coat of paint it's certainly not looking as good as it did back in the 50s uh but it can because it's still there and that's the key Great Basin National Park is absolutely amazing uh having a national park in your area is such a draw and if you've never been to Great Basin before it's the one of the least visited so it still has that original National Park Vibe where you're not in lines with people to take selfies at overlooks um it's got the caves it's got the Peaks it's got bristle cone Pines and it's got the Dark Skies so there's things to do above ground underground daytime and nighttime and then for an area that has been peeking for was peeking for so long there's a lot of major Legacy events the fastest car races in the country on open road racing the original Enduro mountain bike race uh the original rodeo in Nevada there's just a whole long list uh in our 250 events that we have annually of of record-breaking and first and then through all of that in 2004 the mine reopened and so we our copper mine is going again and we also have two gold mines going in the county but as you know mining doesn't exactly play the same role in communities as it did back in the day they're certainly great partners and we work with them and they support outdoor recreation and it's actually the outdoor recreation and quality of life that we are nurturing that is attracting the best and the brightest employees for their operation and so what we're trying to find is that balance of a diversified portfolio of income that's coming into the community and so uh when I came in back in 2018 there was promise of Trail expansions and downtown Renovations and all of these big idea projects and that again is why I said in the beginning that this is a Community Driven project this isn't top down by any means and that is why I feel like it's being successfully implemented is because the community has been involved in this in the entire time and let's go ahead and jump into that process uh real quick because this is going to come up in the the end so you can kind of see the growth in 2017 the year before I got here visitor spending throughout the entire County annually was $40 million and that sounds like a lot but compared to the rest of the state it's actually relatively low and that has to do with empty buildings a lot of assets and experiences that are free that you can just go out and do and so um that was kind of a realization that you know there was a lot more potential for tourism to impact the community by bringing in this new money so just keep that in the back of your mind 2017 $40 million in visitor spending so how do we build momentum how are we how do we improve um our our role our identity our position in the tourism field or industry in the in the west how do we build that momentum and so this this is what I've learned over the years working as the market Mar manager at visit Carson City the director of Tourism here also running uh recreational programs in Lake Tahoe uh in my 20s there's a number of different experiences that have culminated into learning this method right here and so I hope I feel like it's scalable and I I believe that it could also work for your communities so anytime you're doing any kind of rebranding and I'm not we're not changing anything here you know all we're doing is we're looking at how can we be a better version of ourself you know and that starts with listening to the community you have to go in and you have to engage your your community who has invested in it through the rough times who's kept it alive through the rough times and is still there to hopefully support you through the good times and so you ask the normal questions what do you love about being here what are your favorite things about living in White Pine County why did you stick it out and you know we got things like the open spaces the mountains the fact that you can leave from your front door and access outdoor recreation people loved their Community they loved the feeling of being able to come out and liking their neighbors and enjoying going to events and they didn't want to lose that they like the family vibe that you know kids can ride their bikes safely in the streets and it's really fun and so all right awesome that that sounds great I can get down with that what do you guys really want to share all right well we love our history we love our contribution to the Comm Community or to the country you know we want to share that we want people to know how important we were because honestly 30 years isn't that long of a time there are communities that have been bust for a lot longer that don't remember what it was like during the good times and the residents that stayed they were like we remember when there was music in the streets and every one of these buildings was open we want that again we want our sports teams to be packed with kids and be competitive across the state you know so okay cool I can get down with that this is awesome now here's the big question what do you not want to share all right well hands started going up well there's this Wilderness Area out behind this mountain there's a canyon in a creek we really would prefer you not talk about that I promise all right well there's a hot spring over there we kind of don't want people oh I promise well we won't talk about that there's plenty of great stuff that you do want to share which is which is awesome I can work with that and then of course and you have to respect that if the community tells you hey man this is off limits then it's off limits uh and then of course what are you afraid of and we could just sum that up with massive change you know I don't want to wake up one day and not recognize my neighbor I don't want to not be able to afford to live here I don't want to be cut off from my favorite trail head and so these are things that you put on that list of when you start marketing and when you start putting things out there you are in a line with what the community and your partners have told you that they're comfortable with now you're always going to push the limits a little bit to see where the line is but you always have that Baseline of this is what I'm okay with with promoting and what our messaging is going to be and what it's not going to be so I think when you can go into any community and say hey we're not going to change anything we're just going to try to be a better version of ourselves it's going to be received a lot better than all right you guys it's time for the hard work of of changing this the direction of this ship so um that would be my recommendation of of of the initial engagement of your community so we set the goals we went back we listened to all of the feedback and instead of saying hey we're a historic mining Community with a train and a national park how about I think that we're actually a fourseason Mountain Community with a deep connection to Nevada's and America's history and a appreciation for the Arts and diverse cultures we have major events and the best outdoor recreation in the state does this sound like you does this sound like something that describes our area and they're like oh yeah this is totally us all right cool so from here on out if you're ever stuck in an elevator with anybody and they have no clue about elely or White Pine County or the area around us describe us as this Four Season Mountain community history Arts events Recreation um go all right sweet well what's the goal of this what how are we going to how are we going to how are we going to know that this is a success or not you know obviously we're going to look at room tax going up we're going to look at you know visitor spending going up but the end game is is we want planned population growth when you're developing and you have a quality of life like we have people are going to want to know about it but you just don't want any old person to come out to your town you want the right person to come out to your town you want the right person to resonate with the values of your community that have been set in those listening sessions and so that you know that if if they like how you're marketing the community if they love outdoor wreck and events that are small town and you feel like part of the community then you know that there's going to be a match if you go out and you just start marketing yourself completely out of alignment with who you are and that population growth starts happening that's when you start getting into trouble because it's not in alignment with your community's values so we want people to move out here we need nurses and biologists and everybody I mean we've got amazing good paying jobs out here but we need the people to fill them and we want those people to understand what that white pine quality of life is and love it and resonate with it and want to be it so when we go into our marketing everything that we do is purposeful the images that we put out the words the headlines the stories all of that are to resonate with that particular person that aligns with our values and so that starts with new images and videos if you're in a community that is jump starting yourself put the investment in bringing in a photographer to get new images new videos have people in them actionpack not Landscapes not Statics you know put stuff in where it's like there's energy and movement and I put this image in and yes there's no people in it they're all down in town watching the fireworks but this was an image we put out very like pretty soon after I got there and the community went crazy over it they were like oh my God this is us you know and I'm like yeah you look amazing start acting like it and every image that's in this presentation has been some new images that we've done over the six years that I've been here to try to show that action and excitement and so after you get all your images and your videos created and this could be local photographers that do a great job young videographers that are trying to do like reals and stuff like that I mean you can engage a number of different creatives in your area to try to save money but the next step is starting to find those under and Untold Stories of people in your communities that are doing really cool things that are tourism related so for an example we have the first and only female conductor of a steam engine in the country and her story is amazing and so instead of just we're going to tell the story of Angie and her journey to be the first and only female steam train conductor um I think she's actually like the whole train yard operator now um and so when you go down to the train yard you're like oh my god I've got this relationship with this person you might even run into her she she feels like a local celebrity and it brings you down to the train yard to go ahead and ride the train and this is everything from our head Trail Builder to the kid who won State Rodeo tournament uh to anybody who's doing anything cool that is tourism related the the owners of the art deco historic theater you know and that's a way to get your community like feeling good about what they're passionate about and what their contribution is and so you're celebrating them and all of this content can go onto your website and social media which has to continuously be pumping stuff out and that's a scary thing but at least with these new images and video and and stories that we had that was the initial content of of getting our social media and our website up and going again and uh getting people you know aware of who we are and what we were doing the next thing was reaching out to Industry partners and so this for example we're branding oursel as a mountain bike destination so we invited a we invited companies to come out and test their bikes out on our trails and then that produced content that came from all of those different bike manufacturers that we could then share to our social media where Giant Bikes was telling the world hey we love El's Trails as opposed to me telling you how great our trails are I'm that's my job you would expect that so bringing in people across the board of all industry whether it's fishing hunting OHV mountain biking camping uh bigname artist you name it you know just trying to build those connections with the industries that you're in and then of course once you get those industry connections influencers start reaching out to you and they want to come out and they want to start telling your story to their followers and that again just starts creating more and more free content for you people putting stuff out on your behalf that you can then share and and go ahead and use and that's what starts the momentum of the rebranding is getting those Visual and audio and putting it out consistently so it's in people's spaces now to continue uh the kind of consistency of The Branding that we were trying to keep as this Four Season mountain town with all of these assets within the pillars of arts and outdoor wreck and events and history the tourism Department our office started offering up certain services to people who were in who were doing tourism related things so this could be organizations putting on events all the way up to like the museums and nonprofits that actually have physical attractions but we offered up marketing support we would offer up design work for posters or logos just to make sure that you know somebody didn't design a poster that looked like a ransom note uh which can happen sometimes with people's varying design skills so you know hiring local design designers to to keep that consistent across the board we use our PR Company to put out press releases on people's behalf we keep a giant community calendar on elen nevada. again there's 250 events on it and that's everything from story time at the library all the way up to the Renaissance Fair which is the photo from here where we have the fully armored combat Knights duking it out in the park if an event is brand new and it doesn't have a website then we'll build a landing page for it so it can actually have a URL to promote instead of just a Facebook page and a lot of events when they get really outside of the box insurance companies don't want to insure it or they want to Ure it for a price that's pretty prohibitive so we do insurance Partnerships with our partnership for things like parades and stuff like that we'll also offer up video and photography Services if you're doing an event or an attraction that we're lacking in those things then we'll bring somebody in and and get some great b-roll for you produce a video and then we've both got that we offer up three Grant programs a grant program for organizations who put on events we offer up a grant program for organizations that manage outdoor recreation facilities and we also have a grant for Capital Improvement so that would be for things like the bigger ticket items like fencing down at the fairgrounds or a new mower for the golf course things like that and then we're always offering workshops and Community meetings to try to uh they're almost like Ted Talks you know they just pitch certain ideas whether they be around marketing or how to be a better iphoneographer um we're constantly trying to share our uh knowledge with the community so they can be better now while all of this is going on we had uh some amazing projects come to fruition uh at least in in their funding or promise of funding and so there's a grant program in Nevada called snipa it's Southern Nevada a public lands management act and anytime that public land is sold by the Bureau of Land Management to Clark County for development so this is Las Vegas then the profits from that sale go into a grant program where rural communities can apply for recreation projects and there are over $150 million in Recreation and Community projects awarded to White Pine County over the six years that I've been here so some of them were kind of a long time in the making but it includes two Trail expansion projects that total 50 miles of non-motorized Trail and 30 miles of motorized Trail there's going to be the completion of the train track to our Northern Community named Mcgill and so it'll run right into the old Depot there and bring in daytime visitors via steam train to that Community there'll also be a multi-use trail that runs along adjacent to the tracks that will allow people to ride their bikes or walk to and from back to town safely uh an indoor Rodeo Arena and Event Center which is going to you know really increase our capacity for wintertime events a massive new community park that is situated right by the high school and Aquatic Center a downtown park remodel that's going to include an Amphitheater and Event Center a bunch of forest service campgrounds and Trail maintenance especially in the wilderness areas and then our national park has a lot of projects around their campgrounds and then our elely Shon tribe also got a lot of uh awards for housing projects and expanding their their poow grounds and things like that so this is a big deal when you're sitting there in survival mode and you're trying to go from surviving to thriving having $150 million invested into your community in Recreation projects like this is exciting but it's also scary at the same time because the 2,000 people haven't moved back yet so do we have the capacity to manage this do we have the ability to take care of it are there enough people to fill these speci ities and use them so what do we do to plan for this massive expansion right here well the answer to that is is you build community around your assets uh we realized really quick that just marketing the community with the money that we were bringing in and not investing back into it was going to create that over tourism and that imbalance that that makes communities and visitors kind of have that conflict and again we're trying to take a planned growth approach to this where we're learning from all of these other communities that have been over touristed we know the horror stories from some of these places and so the answer of it is is invest in the infrastructure make a great quality of life for your community use that visitor dollar to make your locals lives better and then if visitors resonate with that quality of life then they're going to move back and you're not going to have or they're you know they're going to come out and you're not going to have that so quality of life is our North Star here at tourism and in 2022 we collected $2 million in room tax and of that $2 million we invested 1.1 million of it back into the community facilities uh events all of the things you could think of to try to make the quality of life for our locals better making sure that they want to stay they want to raise their families there and then as visitors come back multiple times eventually they want to move in and you have that alignment couldn't do it without Partners I mean our Our Land managers BLM forest service state parks the city the county White Pine Main Street like anybody who is doing something is a partner there is no uh Outsider or a conflict because what we're doing is all of us together are increasing the pie for for everybody and so doing that where we're working together again increases our capacity we're talking about capacity right now uh we also followed the lead of Oakridge Oregon which probably pushing about 10 years ago uh launched an ambassador training program which I absolutely fell in love with it celebrated the passions of the community and the experts in the community to where if you were into wild flowers then and you came to Oakridge everybody knew you had to go talk to this person at the coffee shop who was The Wildflower expert and if you were a bike rider you had to go talk to so and so over at this place because they knew everything about bikes and it was a way that visitors could get a like locals expertise the locals could feel like oh man they're they're actually stoked that I'm a mountain biker here or a wild flower or you know somebody who spots Wildlife during hunting season can be you know taking people on Wildlife tours in the summertime so and celebrate what they're into and then we also have annual convenings and so we started it around all of our outdoor recreation enthusiasts and organizations we brought our land managers in and essentially had everybody introduce themselves to all of the other groups talked about their projects talked about their needs and ultimately what came out of it was groups started working together that didn't even know that that they existed land managers were now aware of these groups wants and needs so they could start working together on it and it really tied the community together we want to do that with the Arts community and we we also want to do that with the history Community as well and just start not continue to get that feedback from those people that are passionate about those things about what they need also if you're trying to build community around any of your assets and again if you're say you're not even an Outdoor Rec Community say you're pushing the Arts and and music say you're pushing uh you know whatever it is get the kids interested in it as soon as you get kids into things the adult support will follow and we are doing this we started this with our Nika mountain bike team and so this is middle and high school kids that are you know just it's more it's about more kids on bikes and then they do go out and compete but it started with five kids we now have 20 kids their parents are involved all of them have bought bikes where they weren't they weren't even bike owners before and now they're getting their friends involved and so when the Enduro mountain bike race happens in the springtime we now have volunteers for it and the kids compete and it looks great that a ton of locals are competing and getting on the podium with all of these other visitors that are coming to this event and this is the same way with our Junior Rodeo uh our disc golf I mean we get Boys and Girls Club involved in everything OHV camps art camps disc golf camps bike camps and rock climbing camps which is the newest thing that's developing out here where this is a group that is starting to develop community and it's amazing to watch it grow because they came out of the gates hot you know wanting to you know really tackle some big things and I was like hey get the community support behind it and you will have everything you need to go ahead and accomplish all these big goals and they're doing that and we're developing Roots all over the county for beginners all the way up to experts another thing I'm proud of is uh our mural program we're starting to see young artists contribute and and submit design ideas uh which is awesome and they're great ideas but they don't have the polished skill sets to actually scale that up into a mural and so what we're doing is we're pairing in a mentorship type way the mural artists that we've hired in the past to to paint these murals to partner with these young artists to teach them their skills to show them how to become mural artist coloring shading all of these Finer Things that they're not teaching in school while they remove art programs well we're connecting experts with our kids and investing in them and hopefully they'll be the next crop of our munal artists we also have had because we just recently lost it unfortunately uh Shellraiser Music Festival which was a three-day music festival in McGill we got hit up all the time you guys do music out there that's so weird that you've got such a big Festival out in the middle of nowhere and uh it kind of made me realize that if you only do music once a year you're not really a destination for music so we started a free summer concert series where that park that's getting the major remodel with into the amphitheater we're now programming it prior to that project starting of of making it the community living room where people feel comfortable coming down putting out blankets bringing your own beer and snacks we have food trucks we have cornhole boards but it just makes it to where oh you guys do music year round okay you are a music destination so things like that and hopefully that inspires our young musicians to pick up guitars and drums and start playing and forming bands and then they're now our opening bands for future concert series almost done here guys thank you so much for being patient uh things just kind of kept falling into place when we looked at all of those snipa projects with all of the trail expansion we really had to take a look at what is our County going to look like five years from now when all of these projects are done how are these is going to interact with our neighborhoods with our schools with our Parks is there going to be any gaps in that and so we we got a grant from the National Park Service it was called River trails and conservation conservation and we did a full countywide asset mapping and GAP analysis where we plotted all of those Trails all of the neighborhoods the parks the schools everything and all of the trails to come and then looked at where were gaps that if and when development starts happening could could people be cut off from their Recreation could connectivity be cut off could access be cut off and then we went ahead and prioritized those into these are things that we need to focus on next when all of these other projects are done our next project is preserving this Corridor is creating this trail from here to here and so the goals were you know preserving access for outdoor wreck promoting some of our outling communities as hubs and putting in the infrastructure for them to be hubs to Branch out throughout the rest of the county developing year- round Recreation solidifying our Partnerships and preserving our Dark Skies now I'm not going to show the entire map because it's so overwhelming but what this is here is the yellow areas are our main trail system areas and where all of those trails are getting developed you can see residential you can see houses and things like that around elely what we did is we identified three urban trail centers Urban hubs that already have bathrooms that already have investment going into them that already have a positioning where it kind of triangulates the community and everybody can access them so instead of building a whole bunch of new Trail heads we're going to focus on these three areas right here the train depot Heritage Park and Broadband Park you can access our trails from there all of the neighborhoods and and everything can access those Parks from there and then let's focus on branching out from those areas into our connectivity so we triang we try to figure out what three parks are going to cover most of our community have access to all of that public land and then what do we want to Branch out to and if you don't know the county then this this means nothing this could be anything your county but it goes to our Outpost assets our Wilderness areas uh campgrounds uh Lakes State Parks you name it the these are the are that we're trying to get people out to from those Urban hubs and then this just kind of verbalizes we want a connector or we want a station Link at Garnet Hill where the train lets off so that people can put their bikes on the train drop off into a formal area that's a trail head and then jump on single track and ride all the way back to town a link to ice plant trail a link out to Lake you could add any of your priorities here but what this did was is told our land managers told our city told our County who was all involved in this that when all of these snippin projects are done and more Grants open up this is what we're focused on there is no what should we apply for we're applying for this specifically because as a community we came up with these goals for connectivity and keeping our access alive and that is one of the horror stories of a town that's over touristed or booms too quickly and doesn't put the infrastructure in first is you get cut off all of a sudden there's a bunch of houses in the way and uh locals are pissed off so we are trying to prioritize projects that don't make sure that that doesn't happen after the de or after the asset mapping was done we uh were awarded a destination development Grant Pro uh Grant uh project with travel Nevada where they they brought in their marketing team their Community Development teams and all of these Consultants to take a look at not just where are now but where are we going to be five years from now when that asset map uh is is relevant and then take us from that point don't take us from right now take us from that point where're where we know we're going to be and tell us where we need to go 10 years from now and so that was an eight-month process with all of our Community Partners and it resulted in a 10-year Vision plan with actionable items of how to get to our goal and so the vision was is renowned as a place for outdoor adventure especially trail-based Recreation is paired with unexpected experiences connecting visitors and Community culture Fame dark skies and abundant natural lands you go to the community and you're like hey does this sound good absolutely let's proceed so the goal though how do again how do we tell that we're that that this is working we had two choices all right do you want to double the amount of visitors that come out here or do you want to double the amount of spending the D money that visitors leave while they're out here and I think that's a pretty obvious choice do you want to be super crowded or do you want more money with a similar amount of people and so the goal was and this is here this is a little sneak peak here when we did this in 2022 we were up to $60 million in visitor spending and so in 2017 it was 40 million over the six years annually it grew to 60 million but the goal 10 years from now 2032 we want it to be doubled $121 million okay well how are we going to get more people to spend money out here here's how we do it and this is what the plan said okay open up those vacant buildings put shops in them create guided experiences provide rentals of sports equipment that people might not be traveling with really connect with the train depot which is uh an economic Hub they've got gift shops they're selling tickets donations I mean money gets spent there so Stoke up those areas boost up our shoulder season you know so that your Falls and your Springs essentially the mud seasons and you know again fill those vacant buildings but to fill those vacant buildings you got to have people to shop there on days other than S Friday and Saturday you've got to have employees you've got to have the people power to support opening up those buildings so that again can't happen without some planned population growth and then building the reputation of your community and things like this where you're working with other communities and other regions and and speaking and sharing this this this is building reputation we're building reputation right now so our Target visitor the person who again when we went back to the photos the images the stories like what are we putting out there well it's to attract this person the outdoor recreation lover who also enjoys learning while they travel they enjoy Western history and Heritage diverse cultures geology Dark Skies flora and fauna if if this sounds like the way you travel if this is like what you like to do you like to take a hike and then go check out some art or go hit up a museum then you're our person this is who we want to attract and then so you go to the community hey if this person starts coming out here a lot do you think there's going to be any conflicts no I think we're going to get along just fine because that sounds like us so we very happy to see that this target visitor was was an alignment with why we're out here and why we stay out here and they broke it down even further and for those of you in marketing demographics aren't as important anymore now as personas or psychographics so in instead of me caring how many kids you have or what your household income is or if you're married single or split up or it's complicated whatever I I want to know what your mindset is when you travel I want to know who you identify with and that doesn't matter if you're 16 36 or 86 you know if you identify as a road Tripper or a nature lover or a cultural traveler then you're going to like what we put out I'm going to Market to those people the images that I use the Facebook parameters that I set all of that stuff is to go towards resonating with that mindset if you're an outdoor Adventurer okay you're going to love what we do because I'm going to be putting out a whole lot of content for you if if you're a Motorsports Enthusiast if you like you know the open road car races that we do or OHV or dirt biking man we've got stuff for you we're going to put that out and let you know that you are welcome here and if you're a hook and bullet Enthusiast a fisherman or a hunter um here's what we got come on out this is a sportsman paradise and again it doesn't matter what your age or income we're now promoting with the images and the words and the video to personas to mindsets now I won't go over all of these and read these but if you would like to see our destination development plan and dive into these next four columns I'm happy to email it to you uh please use it and see how it could benefit your community um but they did give us some action items on how to develop compelling products and experiences so all of these things down here are products or experiences we don't currently have that they are recommending that it would be good to go ahead and develop and that would increase our our Desir ility there was suggestions on how to develop visitor infrastructure I mean we desperately need more lodging and RV and campgrounds in the summertime where we're absolutely slammed in the winter time not as much you know but in the summertime we're leaving money on the table by not having lodging available to people that are now wanting to come out um repainting your your downtown you know incentivizing facade Improvement things like that so so in a destination development plan we now have actionable items on on how what infrastructure we need we have actionable items on how to be a better tourism Bureau so what do we need to have stronger capacity as a visitor center are there positions and employees that we need uh is there expanding our Convention Center you know what do we what do we need as a as a tourism Bureau to do better at our job and then what kind of marketing and promotion should we be doing to go ahead and add strength and you know it just giving those suggestions there and I can't stress enough how nice it is to not have strategic plan that says oh here's what we like but to actually have an action plan I'm an action plan person I'm a list person I need goals to check off and this provides this to us so now I go back to my board every month I meet with my marketing team and I'm like how how are we checking these off or here's what we're doing to check these off and it very much Keeps Us on task so in closing kind of where are we at now um on this date uh we we see5 million visitors okay about 500,000 spend the night in room tax reporting rooms about 500,000 just pass through gas and go on their way to to the next place and then about a quarter of a million are staying in dispersed camping National Park non- room tax reporting so what we're focusing on is that 500,000 that half million that are just gassing and going and we're putting materials in gas stations in the grocery stores in areas where the people that are not stopping and going downtown purposefully are going to and then we're capturing there and then hoping to get a room night out of them we have a project with the international mountain bike Association it's a signage project in support of all of this Trail expansion but what's great about it is it's not just directional signage in maps it's actually informational signage where we tell the story of our Community our shason history and culture our flora and fauna um it's all using the infrastructure and backbone of our trail system to talk about our cultural identity and our contributions to the to the country we are starting to open up new businesses and new events are happening which is always great to see the downtown Street remodel which I was promised seven years ago is finally starting to happen next summer which is going to be great and the white pine Main Street Association is starting their downtown facade Improvement incentive program which we financially have supported where uh Fresh coat of paint signage awnings things like that to try to make the outside of the buildings look a little bit better we just finished a video project with Giant bicycles uh where they're telling the story of our community while launching an iconic gravel ride and so wait for that video to be launched uh it's going to have international distribution and that's going to follow up with the field pocket guide of all of our other gravel bike riding routs we just had an artist in Residence out uh in Great Basin National Park if you haven't been out there you may also notice that the imagery of national parks are very heavy Yellowstone Yus arches Glacier uh but you don't see anything Great Basin you don't see Dark Skies you don't see bristle cone Pines or our arches or Leman caves so we invited uh Katie Ree out who check her out you know go her work is amazing I'm so excited to see it but she spent a week in great basa National Park and is going to be producing uh producing work inspired by that visit out and you're going to start seeing that now um you know getting our national park out there and the right people are wanting to move back it is happening we are not just getting any old person we are filtering out the week when that 4our drive and everybody who is out here moving out here is stoked to get involved they're they're happy to be out here they love the lifestyle that we're providing but we just do not have the houses we need houses so desperately um and that is our teachers our nurses our BLM biologists our County officials like there are good paying jobs and then you have all the Mind jobs as well so uh if you know anybody who can build houses and wants to come on out and enjoy this white pine quality of life please let me know uh because that is ultimately what we're working for and we are almost there so thank you again for listening uh again I really appreciate the opportunity to share our story uh it has been a Community Driven effort and I cannot stress enough the community in this County and how they come together to make things happen so uh if you want to get a hold of me my email address is right n.net all of our social media uh is elely visit elely Nevada and then if you want to follow one of my side projects on Instagram it's Nevada gravel project and that's just all my bike packing and Adventure cycling route so uh I would love to connect with you I would love to have you out in White Pine County please hit me up if you're ever out in this direction

2024-12-18 09:37

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