Uncorking Collaboration: How Napa Valley's Tourism Strategy Can Boost Your Hospitality Business - Linsey Gallagher, Visit Napa Valley

Josiah intro: Would you like more visitors to your area so that there's more demand for your hotel or hospitality business? In this episode, we explore how collaborating with destination marketing organizations can help you achieve just that. Linsey Gallagher, the president and CEO of Visit Napa Valley, explains how hotels, local businesses, and organizations like hers can work together to drive more visitors, enhance the guest experience, and ultimately boost your bottom line. Whether you're in Napa Valley or elsewhere, the insights from this conversation will show you how collaboration can help your business thrive. Let's get into it. 

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Linsey: Tourism is the economic engine for the community, and it has a tremendous economic impact on our community, which is so generous and welcoming to the world. We put out a welcome mat and welcome visitors from all around the world to the Napa Valley. By doing that, we get tremendous resident quality of life benefits. And I think that, you know, drawing that link is very important. If you look at it, and I think we'll get into this in a moment, but from an economic impact standpoint, it's tremendous, but also in terms of the jobs it creates. 16,000 families in Napa Valley, their livelihood comes from the hospitality industry. That's incredibly important, and that's what we're really proud of here at our organization, to be fueling those 16,000 jobs and the $2.5 billion a year that those visitors spend in Napa Valley. We welcome 3.7 million people here to Napa Valley in a typical year. And those visitors stay in our hotels, they go to our wineries, they support our restaurants, they ride the wine train in a hot air balloon and go on the vine trail on a bike and do all those experiences. And so all told, that's $2.5 billion of economic impact into a community of 130,000 residents, which is a really small piece of the earth, as we know. And all that translates into $108 million of tax revenue that those visitors spend. So not only do they stay at the hotel and visit the winery, but there's a tax stream all along the way that the community benefits from. So they leave behind $108 million here in Napa Valley, which is a staggering number. And one of my favorite statistics in terms of the economic impact is the the fact that visitors spend seven million dollars a day on average in Napa Valley. For some destinations that's the whole year or a month, but that's a day here in the Napa Valley. So those are big numbers, that's impressive, but it's not about that. It's about what resident quality of life benefits do we have from that $108 million in taxes that supports things like our safety and security, police and fire, our parks and recreation, our infrastructure and road improvements, and all of that money, $108 million, goes into the general fund budget of our cities and towns, and that supplements the quality of life services that each city can provide. In a city like Calistoga, it's almost 75% of the budget for the city of Calistoga comes from those guests who stay overnight in a hotel and then leave. In Yountville, 65% of their budget. Here in the city of Napa, where we're chatting today, almost 30% of the budget comes from those visitors who stay in a hotel and pay that tax. And so I happen to live walking distance from where we are right now in downtown Napa and my taxes as a resident are 30% less than what they would be if we didn't have visitors here in our community. We also wouldn't have two targets of Home Depot, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and all of the wonderful culinary options in Yonkville and throughout the valley if we didn't have visitors here. There are a lot of communities right next to us, similar sizes, that don't have this tourism culture as part, and the quality of life is very different for those residents.

Josiah: I appreciate you getting into the details because I imagine many of our listeners have visited the area. Obviously the region is known around the world for its wine and among other attractions. But I appreciate you getting into the details because in different parts of the world there's been some backlash to tourism. That is probably a separate conversation for another time. I think regardless of where our listeners are listening to this, it shows the power of tourism to benefit everyone if it's done well, if it's responsible. So again, there's a whole conversation around that. But specifically what I'm excited to talk with you about is some of the details of what this looks like. And I would love to kind of specifically get into potential or opportunities for collaboration, because I think done well, tourism and hospitality can be exactly what you said. It's sort of this rising tide lifts all boats and benefits everyone. But I'd love to get your take on what opportunities do you see on collaboration between hotels, other local hospitality businesses, and visit Napa Valley to enhance that overall visitor experience and increase the appeal of this area as a destination?

Linsey: Yeah, I think, you know, I'll reference a movie that's going to date me, but I think as the main character in Jerry Maguire says, help me to help you. And I think that is what we are. We're the destination marketing organization, often known as a DMO. organizations like ours exist in many destinations. And we're different from a chamber of commerce. We offer a different set of benefits than some great organizations here in the Valley, like the Farm Bureau or the Napa Valley Vintners. We are here to market the destination. So most of the work that we do happens from here in Napa, but it goes to the world. And I don't think there's great awareness about what we do even here in the Valley. So the short answer is this Valley is one of the most collaborative places, certainly that I've ever worked. We face a ton of adversity, whether that's an earthquake or wildfires or a pandemic. Both this valley and this industry, hospitality and ag, have been through so much and we are so good at coming together, finding common ground to fight a common enemy, whether that's a pandemic or a fire, but also When it matters, we we collaborate at our core. That's the ag industry here in the valley. And at the end of the day, we might be fierce competitors with our neighbor. But if we have finished our harvest and we have tanks available and, you know, we've got a wildfire coming and the neighbors picking, you're going to offer your tanks, you're going to offer your tractor. And that, I think, is the core of who we are. So I think that, you know, everybody there's enough for everybody here, too, as well. I think that we have to compete right now as a destination. We need to continue to exceed expectations of our visitors so that they choose to come back here. We were covered ahead of the rest of the state in California and ahead of the rest of the nation in many cases, right here in Little Napa Valley. As we were able to open those hotels again, as we were able to really enhance our alfresco experiences. I mean, we were forced to be outside and Napa Valley made lemonade out of that lemon, right? And we already had some of the most amazing outdoor experiences, but everybody took those to the next level.

Josiah: I would love to get into the details of that, but I think just to that point, you mentioned there's more than enough to go around. This is the potential. It's not a fixed pie here, right? I think, and as you mentioned, the goal of what you're doing is increasing the overall awareness and expanding that pie, right? Absolutely. So we can drive people from around the globe. People around the world are coming, but you're driving more and more of that. And as that happens, each local business can improve. Because I think there's so many environments where it feels so competitive. And whether you're a business owner or an operator, you're trying to drive results. But what I'm hearing from you is an opportunity to collaborate, increase the demand, and you're going to get a piece of that as a business owner or operator.

Linsey: And know that not only do people love to visit Napa Valley, they like to come two and three times in a year. So even if they're going to stay at Hotel A this time around, they should stay at Hotel B next time around. And they should try different wineries. What we do at Visit Napa Valley is encourage everybody to fall in love with this place, but also to explore the entire valley. It's not one dimensional. I think that we here in the valley sometimes get a little bit insular in our focus. But when you're from any more than 60 miles away from here, They don't necessarily know where Yountville is versus Calistoga versus American Canyon, Napa, St. Helena. And so what we're doing at the DMO is trying to first, you know, commit to coming to Napa Valley and then explore the breadth of experiences amongst our towns, the breadth of experiences we offer in lodging, the incredible wineries all throughout the valley. And so, again, we're really trying to be a mothership over all of that, I guess, but I know, you know, if any of our partners or individual businesses are listening, engage with us, you know, reach out to our team, and we would love to tell your story as part of our Napa Valley story. We have the visitnapavalley.com website. We have thousands of listings and events and, you know, anything that's happening in your property, we want nothing more than to pull that through to our website. That websi hits a year. Um, we don't website. You know, my team to sell. We just aren't h find you, find the town, find the experience, the things a lot of visitors to the w you speak a little bit to people, I guess to the we going on? I mean, I think Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. So we sort of look at our marketing world in the paid, owned and earned channels. The paid side is absolutely. We work with a great strategic marketing agency called The Shipyard. They are also the agency of record for Visit California. Which has around a 200 million dollar budget that they're working with in their global in their advertising plan We work with San Francisco travel on the region and then as I said, we share the same agency as visit, California So we get a lot of synergy and the the limited dollars that we do have Allows us to go really broad and deep in the California market, you know, we're gonna fish where the fish are We know that that more than 50% of our visitors are coming from right here in the state of California within an hour's drive market and then down in Southern California. So a big focus on blocking and tackling here in the state of California. But beyond that, we also go into farther away markets like Texas, New York, Florida, Chicago. And so that's something often that many of our partners don't have the ability to do their own communicating or advertising in those markets. So our goal is to do for the industry what they can't do for themselves. And so we're able to get, through our paid media efforts, into some far out markets. Then we have our owned media, which is our website, which we just talked about. From a social media standpoint, hundreds of thousands of followers on our channels, incredible engagement, people. when they are, you know, sitting at home in Dallas trying to figure out where they're going to travel, they're going to our social media, they're going to our website. Those tools are incredibly important in the inspiration phase of travel planning. So a full paid media effort, digital print, excuse me, out of home, the website, the social media, the other content that we produce here are like our blogs and we may be talking about the best places for brunch or dog-friendly wineries or kid-friendly experiences. So if the partners who are listening have those types of experiences, please share those with our team and we will make you part of that story. It's not a corporate story about visiting Napa Valley. This is, you know, our team is here in the background very humbly telling the story of the Valley. So that's another place. Another piece that many people don't know that we have is we do have a sales and business development team well and those that team is on the road probably 80% of the time out there flying a Napa Valley flag in faraway places at trade shows with meeting planners really trying to get that corporate and incentive business to come to the Napa Valley as well as leisure groups and working with travel agents and travel advisors so that's a very active team that's visible around the world but not visible here. So if a partner has a space or an experience that is good for social events, weddings, and milestone birthdays, or group events for incentive trips or such, we are happy to learn about that and promote that when those leads come our way for that business. And last but not least, I'm not sure if I'm leaving anyone out, we have the Napa Valley Welcome Center, just a couple blocks from here. That's a welcome center that's open seven days a week, 360 days a year. We see about 110,000 people a year come through that welcome center, and we're talking about the entire Napa Valley. And those are people that are in the destination already. So, you know, someone may be looking at the website and the social a few weeks before they come here, but when they arrive at the welcome center, Here in Napa Valley, they've probably planned two-thirds of their experience, and we, with our concierge team there, it's all free of charge. We are working to inspire them to explore the whole valley, you know, once they get here. So, kind of the buckets of what we do.

Josiah: It's good to talk through that whole process, because travel planning is something that you'll get, kind of, anyone who's done research into this, there's so many different touch points where it's typically planned over months, especially a destination like this. and all the different touch points that you're making available. It's not just raising awareness for the region, but getting into the details. Because people like to dream. They like to get inspired. So as paid media or own media, so you're helping them with that. I would love to talk a little bit about how hotels and hospitality business in the area can work with you. You mentioned sharing things with your team that they have going on. Are there any kind of anything else come to mind in terms of how you would like people to collaborate with you?

Linsey: Yeah, one of the things we do a couple times a month is we have partner pop-ups in our Napa Valley Welcome Center. And so we advertise that. We have a partnership with a local radio station. So any partners who are listening, send that content our way. You can email partnership at visitnapavalley.com. We want to know what you have happening that we should consider programming into a journalist itinerary when we have media coming from all over the world. We want you to come into the Welcome Center for an hour on a Friday afternoon and talk about that experience in front of those 110,000. guests that are there, you know, catch those people who are in there on Friday afternoon trying to figure out what they're going to do for the next two days while they're here. So, you know, there's that. We have a fun program with our local radio station where we sponsor every hour on the hour. It's called What's Good Napa Valley, and it's just a little highlights reel of cool and interesting things that are happening, often events and activations that wineries or hotels or other hospitality businesses are doing. So let us know about that and we will happily program that in to our sponsorship package with The Vine every hour on the hour in that What's Good Napa Valley. We also have a lot of proactive media outreach that we're doing to seed stories and articles and that very important third-party endorsement. So we do regular calls for content that go out to all our partners, but to sort of circumvent all of those pieces, just ping partnership at Visit Napa Valley, let us know what that new experience is. We'll make sure our sales and business development team starts to pitch that when we're responding to leads. We'll consider that when we're talking to journalists, and we'll pitch that to long lead publications that are just checking in every once in a while and wanting to know what's new in Napa Valley. A lot of different pieces to the puzzle but and back to the what we said a couple of minutes ago you know help us to help you share that information with us and we will happily and gladly pump it back out through our channels which are you know which go far and wide. We here at the Destination Marketing Organization are just here to share what's happening with all the partners. And the more breadth and depth we have in that story, the more somebody from Miami or Chicago or Dallas is likely to book a trip here. the need for all of us to work together collectively to over-deliver on expectations of our visitors. We must exceed expectations because we're commanding some of the highest hotel rates in the nation right now. There's a lot of conversation around that and that could be the subject of another podcast as well. But it is, you know, when people come here it is a significant investment At any level, whether that's a more limited service hotel or a luxury resort, it's an investment. And so for us to continue to get people to coming back here, we've got to exceed their expectations in terms of service and experience. And I think that that is a challenge I would like to put out to the entire industry. We've got this. You know, we have shown that when adversity throws us, a wrench, we're going to pick it up and make something of it. When we got forced to do outdoor dining, we built some of the most magnificent tents that were, you know, some of the most beautiful dining places you could imagine. I visited a destination during the pandemic, you know, just briefly, and the experience there was I felt I was sitting next to a dumpster in the sidewalk for my outdoor dining, and that is not, you know, here in Napa Valley. There was a clear tent with chandeliers and the stars and, you know, it was gorgeous and it wasn't cold and So anyway, I think that we absolutely have the ability to surprise and delight and to over deliver, but we need to not take our eye off that ball as our competitors recover and start to get their resource base back.

Josiah: Well, I appreciate you sharing that because those are very practical action steps. If our listeners are in Napa Valley, it's about working together to make sure people have a great feeling after they have stayed here. You're doing this yourself in your organization. You're collaborating with others. Visit California, San Francisco, because you see the power of collaboration. You're doing that here. So I think wherever our listeners are in the world, Work with your local partner. If you're here in Napa Valley, obviously work with your organization. If we could, one more question before we go. I'd like to zoom out. We started at a high level. I'd like to end there. Where do you see all of this going? Is there an aspect of destination marketing that you're most excited about or something you're working on that is exciting for you these days?

Linsey: Absolutely. I think what I am most excited about is the efforts that we are starting to make in the destination stewardship and sustainability realm. The Napa Valley has the first agricultural preserve in the United States that was created back in 1968. As part of who we are as a region, we're agricultural, we're conservative, And we prioritize protecting the land for future generations and bringing that through. The wine world in Napa Valley is cutting edge in that regard. We've been green long before it was cool to be green, and this is part of who we are. But bringing that and encouraging those sort of stewardship practices, bringing it into the hospitality side, To be good stewards of the destination is some very intentional work that we are starting here in the DMO space, and we're excited to be working with our partners all throughout the Valley in bringing that to life in years to come. What does that look like? Well, first and foremost, we have one of the first valley-wide lodging, it's called, it's a lodging certification program that's going to have sort of a common elements of a program that our lodging partners will certify to in the stewardship and sustainability space. We then hope to roll that out into other verticals here in the valley like the restaurant community, the transportation community. We're already doing that in the vineyard and wine space. We're very well known for that through the Napa Green program, but bringing that focus into the lodging space primarily is very exciting for us. We also are working with the Forbes five-star team on a destination-wide staff training program that's going to launch in December. We're going to have Many of the individual properties work with Forbes, and we have many staff members here who've come from hospitality partners who are very proud to be Forbes' five-star train. We are going to bring that to a higher level and invest in the workforce valley-wide. so that we can continue to over-deliver on expectations and service standards. And we must be singing for the same song, Gina. We must be aligned and educated in how every level of our staff at any property are speaking about the Valley and being good stewards and good ambassadors for Napa Valley so that that guest experience is exceeding expectations. We have a lot going on. Just percolating came out of our three-year long-range plan that we just completed, but we are doing a sustainable tourism plan for the entire valley. We are doing this green lodging certification program. It's in a pilot phase right now, but much more to come for the whole industry very soon. And then investing in the staffing side of things, whether that's at a restaurant, at a winery, at a hotel, at a transportation partner really helping, you know, raise the bar of service standards valley-wide and partnering with the Forbes five-star organization to do that.

Josiah: We might have to chat again soon. I actually had Stuart Greif, Forbes' Chief Innovation Officer, on Sunday during the show and was talking a little bit about mentorship, but I feel like so many people I talk to talk about working with Forbes to elevate their their standards in the service. And so I think that's so critical and so interesting. So I'll put links in the show notes to where people can learn more about your organization, about you, your work, and hopefully we have a chance to do this again soon. But Linsey, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. Thanks for including me.