City Council - Regular Meeting

Selected flight. report from the Union County Chamber of Tourism and Promotion and I'm going to turn it over.

Thank you. Now, good morning everyone and thank you for your time. Good evening. Well, it's still not good afternoon. Wasn't morning though. It's still afternoon for one minute. Second word. I already screwed up. I was You're all right. I know. 1016. Um, well, I'm excited to walk through the tourism program work for 2026 2027 fiscal year

and share some of the results we've seen for the past year and where we're heading next. You can change the slide. So for 2025, uh before we jump in, I want to take a moment to reflect on what we've accomplished for 2025 2026 fiscal year and so we can all get a sense of foundation for the next year. Over this last year, we made some meaningful progress across both marketing and tourism efforts. We've completed a full SEO refresh uh for the site, which gives uh not only improved visibility, but also user experience much stronger for people who are actively planning trips to Union County. And I'll go through all the data and numbers as well for all these top level points um in a few other slides. We've also built a strong foundation with Crowd Rift uh which has allowed us to start consistently developing highquality visual content that we can use across all of our digital programs. Uh we've stayed in partnerships with EOVA, Tribal Oregon, OSAA, EOU, Mera, and the Eastern Oregon Film Festival. We've also we also expanded our distribution for print visitor materials while maintaining a strong balance between print and digital marketing. And on top of that, we've launched uh co-op marketing initiatives led development efforts with our uh partners at EOVA with Hell's Canyon Tourism website and continued support with high impact events that occur in Union County. Overall, we made a big push to strengthen our destination storytelling, especially across digital channels to better showcase what makes Union County unique. So, over this past year, um, we've built a really strong foundation and moving into 2027, the focus shifts from building to refining to improving efficiencies and getting even more impact out of the work we've already put in. And I'll pause there for any questions. You can see right here the uh those are

my main talking points. You can see them on your slides as well. printed copies, but those are just some icons of our local events. And next year we'll have the Thunder at the Peak and uh you know one or two other events that we'll be partnering with. Um so we'll expand those as well. All right, next slide. So before we get to talking about all the the digital success and measurements and impacts, uh we want to say uh and describe to us to the the team here how we actually measure digital success. Uh last year we spent time defining what success looks like and now this year we're going to focus on how we're using that data. We're tracking performance across key areas. Everything from website traffic engagement to digital campaign performance to how our content is performing across social media platforms. We're also looking at more direct tourism indicators, things like overnight stays, lodging trends, and how events are contributing to visitation throughout the year. But the most important piece is how we're going to be using that information. This isn't just about reporting for the sake of reporting. It's about actively guiding how we allocate the budget, how we adjust campaigns in real time, and how we see opportunities to grow. Next slide. That's all good. These are some of our key tourism pillars for in Union County. Um, you know, I'm sure all of you will kind of already have a gist of what we have to offer here. outdoor wreck, events and festivals, arts, culture, and history, agro tourism, and local experiences. And overall, we have a four-season approach um that applies to all communities across Union County. And we're really hoping to shoulder or expand shoulder season opportunities based on, you know, the we have a summer term, which is we have everything done and we're getting great numbers, but during the winter, we can see a dramatic decrease in users. And so it's not only making sure that we're optimizing what's already been good and built, but also

looking at what can be improved during those offseason season opportunities. Next slide. So this is from EOBA and we can see here the year-over-year growth for revenue trend um average daily rate uh so on um and it's particular to It's particular to uh oh there might be a little rearranging in this presentation. You'll see the slide three three pages afterwards.

Um this is across eastern Oregon. Um and it's pretty significant. I think part of this growth is due to more communities in the on the west coast traveling to more rural communities. Um, when you compare this to some of the other regions in Oregon where we're dramatically, uh, you know, year-over-year percent change in growth, uh, much better than those, um, seeing that there's been a lot of push to rural communities, um, away from bigger cities. And so, we've can see that in our numbers here as well. So, this is just the last year, 2025, and like January be on the left, December on the right. This would be 2024. Yeah.

Versus 2025. So January to December 2024. And then the the arrow, the blue arrow on the top left, you can see one point or 122 million. Then it goes up 4%. That's the year-over-year comparison. So but it doesn't show the line shows 24 or 25. It doesn't. It shows 25. Okay.

It shows 25 and then the comparison is that percentage change right there. Um yeah. And so this it's a lot of numbers to look at. Um, so I'll pause to see if you have any questions, but you know, it's all pretty, uh, straightforward when it comes to EOVA. It's a very broad picture of how the market is in Eastern Oregon, which is a big part of the state. Um, so we'll drive into Union County specifically here soon. Um, but here is a top level view of Eastern Oregon. But when it says room rate supply, why is it going up and down? Room rate supply is dependent on seasonality. And so I imagine that would be, you know, February after Christmas, it just drops.

But the supply would be there. I mean, it's the rooms would be there. I guess I was thinking supply meaning the room there isn't rooms available at those times. Yeah, they would they wouldn't change. They'd still be the same amount of rooms. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I'll have to look into that specifically to make sure because room night supply. So, part of that is you've had a couple of hotels in the region that have been under under renovation. Oh, so those have been taken out of supply. And there's also accounts for um um vacation rentals which are sometimes seasonal. So they're only like if you go to Walawa, those are rentals in the winter and and vacation rental.

That makes sense. Okay, thank you. So yeah, great question. And the next slides will actually be diving in a little closer to those uh uh Airbnb type uh vacation rentals. Great. Yeah, let's do it. So, here's short-term vacation rental for 2025 compared to 2024.

And you can see we are the highest in the state for year-over-year supply and demand growth. Um, and that's something that I alluded to earlier with, you know, when we look at the numbers for different regions. Um, we're really doing, you know, we have a smaller demand and we have a smaller um, uh, supply, but at the same time, the change in in percent is really what I like to key in on to say we've experienced growth. And that sort of growth is what gets us to hopefully we'll be at Mount Hood in the gorge area on this report in two three years instead of all the way at the bottom for Eastern Oregon. Okay. We can't not in my opinion. No. No. Because I think uh short-term rentals take away from our permanent people. It pulls those off of the market and we've restricted that to a point.

Okay. Um I mean it's good for tourism but bad for people who live here. shred up rent makes housing scarce. It's nice to but growth would also cuz they're not rented all the time. So even if we have a certain amount like if the amount we have increases then we're showing tourism. Yeah. I mean I I agree 100% that it's not all positive when No, it's rough for people trying to find a place to live. I mean I'm in that boat as well. So you know it.

Um next slide. So, here's the statewide regional occupancy and revenue rate, which we also were the the highest in revenue growth, uh, over 12.5% year-over-year. Um, which is pretty dramatic. Um, usually we don't see, you know, a two-digit year of year percent change. Um, and that has to do with people wanting to visit rural communities more often. Um, and then also our tourism efforts as well.

Sorry. Does anybody complain about the rate of rooms here? I mean, I I no one's complained to me personally, but I'm sure that the increase in, you know, in inflation and plus the how the market's changing, it the rates are always going to just keep going up, I imagine. And so, I haven't personally heard any feedback that the Airbnb. Yeah. Yeah. That might help the $150 room is like 320, right? But it doesn't help for people wanting to come in and stay at that rate. Correct. Yeah.

We do have uh I would say the the RV park which I feel like if we were able to get data from that to see how many people are are going and staying at the RV park that would be a great opportunity to see, you know, how that correlates with other that would that would be because I think a lot of people are out there more permanent people out there than they used to be. Yeah. But at Hot Lake, that's more seasonal. Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah. But the one down on on the island. Yeah, that one. I think there's a lot of people who live there. Yeah. I think they they had a big session on for overnighters. Yeah, they probably would. They would want to anyway.

Do you know how they define Eastern Oregon here? I imagine this is inclusive of Hermiston and Ontario. And so these numbers could be dramatically shifted by those two areas that really frankly would not be relevant to our small community. Yep. Absolutely. These are the EOVA's numbers that I pulled. Um we'll be looking at Union County specific here in a moment. Um I just wanted to give you a big picture on how we how we land. Um, so when it comes to our uh our relationship with Travel Oregon, um, you know, there's Travel Pendleton, which is but that still encompasses EOVA, even though Pendleton does have a larger or a lot much larger tourism market because of their their rodeo.

Um, but it encompasses pretty much the entire east side of the state. So, it's around 11 counties. All of those are in these numbers. And Union County ranks, I would say, like third or fourth on that list. And so that's something that I uh talked about with Elena from EOVA. And um unfortunately this is part of the problem with Eastern Oregon and Travel Oregon um is Eastern Oregon's vis visitors association gets much less funding than Travel Portland and then you know a lot of the stuff on the west side and that's reflective of the numbers that we see here. Um and it's also reflective of percent and change because obviously if we had such bigger numbers it would be harder for us to get a 12% increase. That would just be very dramatic if we're looking at you know almost a billion dollars. but we're at 21 million. And so it's a small stride, but it's in the right direction. And the one of the issues is that Travel Oregon sort of considers Eastern Oregon visitors association like the lowest on the ladder, so to speak, which is realistic and, you know, reasonable. Um, but they have a limited amount of funding. And so when you get to these bullet points or these data points, you really have to drill down. You can't reference travel organ uh for data because they don't drill down as much. We have to create our own. um which is something that I was able to accomplish and it's on the next few slides here. Um and so and before we go, is there any other questions in regards to short-term vacation rentals performance? Okay, so this just gives us into a great understanding of here's our opportunity. We're positioned to capture additional visitation. We want to increase the length of stay during se on season and offseason um uh rates for people in tourism to come and visit. and Union counties. Uh we're really in a high growth potential market. So that percentage change we're hoping to continue moving forward and bumping up each year by year. Next slide. So now we get to look and this is something I'm going to you know tap myself on the shoulder for. I was able

to drill down to just Union County's uh lodging performance um in with the with travel organs provided data and I was able to build that looker studio report um that is on it's in your packet as well. Um but if we click on to the link can would we be able to pull it up? There's the printed version and then there's this digital version which will update every uh two months. Essentially, we get the data 2 months after it's done. And so, uh you can see here all the way back from 2018 or 2019. Yeah,

we actually do have 2018's data, but it was a little too much to fit on the graph. So, I figured 19 would be a good ballpark. But if there's any edits that you all want to make to this, uh, it's a great opportunity. You know, you can shoot me an email. Everyone should have this information and it's going to be updated every two months. Um, so everyone has this link, excuse me, in the slides share deck that we slid we share digitally. The links available there and it's going to be updated every two months. That's something the chamber is going to be taking over. And um I've recently talked to the UOVA about this too and they're interested in having this report be used for the other counties too seeing that travel organ doesn't provide the resources that they we would like to see for the exact number um per month of what Union County specific is is is marking us.

Tell me how this is calculated or sorry tell me how this data is calculated. So Travel Oregon has uh they have their they have a system in place where it tracks credit card uses. It it also is it is voluntary voluntary uh um if the hotel provides that data to travel Oregon then it's good but they're not required to they're not required to so it's voluntary voluntarily uh uh what's the word I'm looking for voluntarily submitted participation

yeah and a lot of a lot of these when it comes to at least the credit card and revenue and and and uh the the available daily rate those things are calculated in broader terms and so they do have some credit card history as well that they can associate with those things but it just depends on where your credit card zip code's being used and if it's you know associated with so this is going to be hotels only this is hotels and Airbnbs and Airbnb do we have an idea of what the participation rate is in that for Union County that's a great question I just to me I'm I'm always after what's the integrity of the data absolutely is this like two hotel chains in all of Union County

and that's what we're seeing here, then throw it in the dust, man. It doesn't matter, right? That's really not going to be representative. So, it would be nice to know again what the integrity of the data set is if we're looking at these numbers to know, can we actually make projections off of this or, you know, pat ourselves on the back or not, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, I just just would be curious as you you know have a chance to dig into that and find out what I think I mean by looking at the listing nights available I mean we could get an idea of scope um because I mean if we have a

a 50 room hotel obviously we don't have two of those if we have 2600 listing nights available but um yeah it'd be interesting Yeah, I will I will double check. EOVA and Travel Oregon do a good great job. This is this data set that I pulled this from is what Travel Oregon uses as their standard benchmark to say how things are going. Um and so I will confirm with them to see if we can get an accurate headcount to say how many hotels Airbnbs are actually submitting their information. And if we have hotels who are not participating, maybe approaching them and say,

"Look, we can help you if you help us with data." Right. We can't help you if we don't know what your need is. That That actually really surprises me. I wouldn't think we have 3,000 available rooms for a year, right? That's a month. That's a month. So realistically, I mean, I guess if you did 50 night or a 50 room hotel times 30 days, you got 1,500 or 150, right? So, are you counting like rooms in each of those? Like there's like 24 rooms. You're counting those as rooms as well. Oh, okay.

That that might make more sense. If you count them times 30 for the month, that that would be low then probably. Yep. So, that means that's not all the hotels list, right? And that's what I'm saying is I mean, it'd be nice to have eyes on that to be able to say, yeah, if we're going to use this data and reference it in the future, we just you want to ensure um that it's it's going to be meaningful. Great.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll drill down. I'll make sure that that's an action item. And so, and this is something what's great about it, it's real time. So, every two months, you'll be able to reference it. And then, you know, here I would say within a month or two, I will be able to confirm whether how far down this um is this is accurate. Um it's a great question. This is what like I said travel organ uses and so I defaulted to you know assuming that this would be the the precise data set and it is the at this point the best data set that we do have. Making sure that we have everyone listed and who's participating is the next step that we'll be able to do.

Um but if you scroll down a little bit more you can see you know it's it's a great it's a great story to tell. We really have been you know I don't want to say we're killing it but we've been dominating like this market. We've we've increased from what 2009 was to 2019, excuse me, to all the way to our peak season in September 2025 um to I think it's over $300,000 versus January 2029, which was less than 100. Um you know, obviously there's inflation to consider, but at the same time, it's something that, you know, we really could present and say, hey, this is something uh that is a key point and data set to show significant growth over time. So listing night is just a route that's available. Is that correct?

How to interpret that? Okay. So that shows that we really have increased in the availability over time, which is nice. The revenue I'd be curious to see how that tracks just with inflation. Yeah, I think is this a higher spend, a higher dollar amount, you know, because rates are going up, or is it, no, we're actually attracting more valuable tourists to town who are also more likely to put those dollars into the community in other ways. I could absolutely build a report or a little chart that says adjusted for inflation and then put that on. Yeah. Mhm. I do like that we have 19 cuz, you know, 20 through 22 are going to be pretty skewed. But

looking at 19 compared to now, I think is a pretty good way to actually look at at a difference there without using CO.

I mean, this is this is cool. This is in my time on the council. This is the best presentation of data that I think I've seen on this. And we've we've asked for this sort of thing in the past. like can we can we get into the numbers? So, I mean I love the direction that we're seeing here. That's what we should be using, right? I mean, we should be leveraging, you know, large data sets in making these decisions. Um, and then, you know, really going after, you know, how what brings somebody into Union County. I think that's the question that that I have yet to see and and that's a hard thing to track, right? I mean, you can survey, you can that's that's a squishy number. Yeah. Um, but but that's really what we want to know, right? Is we're talking about how do we promote tourism? What makes somebody want to come to Eastern Oregon and what makes them want to spend money here

and then hopefully come back here and decide they want to bring their family here and live and refer friends and all that. But

yeah, it's a tough there's there is a travel and this is something that I'll add into this report as well. Um, so like I said, real time. You guys can view it whenever you'd like. But there is a report in travel organ that makes uh estimations on how much people are spending based on trends that they collect. And so we were able to see at a county level the estimation of this person's going to spend potentially this much money and then based on the larger market. Um, but that's again unfortunately it's Eastern Oregon and I should say they do have the data for Union County, but it takes a fair amount of time to go and drill down and make sure that we're collecting it all and organizing it correctly. Um but those are all things that you know it's living report meaning I don't expect it to look this way you know in two months and I hope to increase you know increase the amount of data that we have and the accuracy of it. Yeah. This is cool.

Yeah. I have a question. Okay. Like David was talking about we really want to know what is bringing people here to to Lrand. And I know when I go to a hotel they go oh what brings you here? Business or you know whatever. I mean that's something that I don't know if we could request our hotels or our places to ask and that but I know I always share that information when I when I travel somewhere and I mean that way we could really pinpoint if that could happen really what is truly bringing people here. I worry too, you know, so much of this is based off of hotels, but

I don't I don't go to hotels anymore. I'm going to an Airbnb. I'm going, you know, and especially with my family. We're larger family, so I have to pick either paying two hotel room rates. Yeah. With no laundry, max of six, I got a family of seven. I mean, do math, but that's crazy, right? So, so we always go Airbnb, but frankly, it's a nicer experience a lot of the time anyway. And so I do think it does skew some of this a little way and and harder to track. You're disseminated. It's a private market, right? These are people who are less likely to be less forthcoming with the data. you know, they're worried about losing regulations and other things and who's who wants to see this and

but they have cards to fill out on the in the um Airbnbs because we've always filled out those cards when we travel with the family. But when it's just Ken and I, we do a hotel, they do have they have those signin books and then they have, you know, why you're here, too. But do they share that information?

Well, that's what we could see if it's a possibility. It can even be in like a package of brochures and magazines that's like here's Lrand or Union County plus a survey and then that'll be like a foot in the door. And we've already got I think three or four uh Airbnbs in the past year to be chamber members. But it's a harder sell because they already have the Airbnb platform and an app that shows you everything. So it's it the value chamber brings is sort of it's not as easy. But that said, we are getting participation from some Airbnbs Airbnbs. Um, and yeah, I would I'll see if we can get some sort of survey there. Um, and I, you know, the more I think about this, I feel like it's been done before and so this might be something that we could not rebuild the wheel and use and like I'm sure bigger counties have used something like this before and so we can look into that.

Yeah. I mean, I just I think we make a lot of assumptions as to what brings somebody, but I don't know that those assumptions are based off of any any tangible information that we've gathered. Um,

it's tough. A lot of the work that we do uh promotes outdoor wreck activities and so those are all free and I was something that you know now that we're all in the same room if we were to get one of those tubes that track how many cars go to Meera or tubes that track how many cars are going to Anthony Lakes that would be a great tool to resource. I I don't know if that's a possibility. I heard it was really expensive and then that's when I was like oh I thought it was just like a tube for the computer but no it's a little more complicated than that. Um and so that's something that you know I'd love if that conversation could take place. So in a year from now whenever we can get those that would be a hard point. There are also the parking permits for uh Mera that I will make sure that we get that in

data will be I mean so the data from last year is available but it was not mandated last year to have a parking permit but this year will be the first year that um that parking program will actually be necessary. Okay. Not that everybody's gonna buy one because they're they're gonna go up there and hope to not get a ticket like they do on Main Street, but um yeah, so that'll be a good day to have. Okay.

I know in 2023 um independent group did a twomonth survey and then use national park figures and it was estimated that we had over 32,000 visits to Mera in that calendar year. That's not obviously some of those are a lot of those are going to be people that go up four or five days a week that live here, but um you know portion of that are people traveling in from out of town. Wow. Visitors, not Yeah. Not cars, but actual I think national parks say 2

three people per vehicle is what they average at a national park. And so if you apply that same data to the cars, yeah, it's an estimate. visited with our antique stores. They seem to always get the visitors and they they ask them Uhhuh. you know, why are you here? Cuz at least when I've talked to Craig down at Craig's, he's always telling me half my people come, they stop by, they're out of town people that shop there. So, I just think that might be a good If you haven't talked to Craig, you should. I have spoken to Craig. Yes. Yeah. But not about this. Well, I don't know how you got away from him. It is hard to get away. He's a great guy.

He is a good guy. What else in regards to Union County's logic performance? And so these next few slides, um, you want me to close this? Yes. Thank you, ma'am. Um, we really drill down in this conversation by just looking at the report. Um, and so we don't have to go through these next three slides really. These are just repeating what we already talked about, which is, you know, we're seeing an increase and and we're seeing seasonality and uh we're seeing stability. Yeah.

So, here is one of the main reasons why I was brought on as the executive director um with my digital marketing experience. I was also a data analyst, which is why some of this work back in house is really fun and it it really does help. Um you know, I I'm a very data driven person, and so there's no numbers behind it. It's just feelings and that doesn't do the trick. Um, and so the uh these digital marketing efforts are pretty spectacular. I don't think I've ever seen something uh I've ever I've had a project that was at such a I don't want to say I've done startup work and I've worked with you know multi-million dollar conglomerations, but I've we're some in between somewhere here and there where it's like we have everything built. um they wasn't optimized. And so I was able to use the long-standing content and effort that previous executive directors and previous staff have worked on throughout, you know, however many years that we've had a website and a Facebook and Instagram and build on that um to show these great amazing numbers. Uh 105% active users. That's great. It's one of my best selling points to when people ask why they need to be in the Chamber of Commerce, I say we have an active website. We have people going there. We have people looking things up. you know, yeah, they're still googling it, but once they Google it, our chamber shows up. Um, so Google Analytics is all of our website data. Google search is all of our search console data, so what people are looking at when they Google things. Um, Facebook, you know, Facebook, Instagram, and you know, next year there might even be an AI slot for like all the AI chat bots because that's the new where the market's going. Um, and so we'll be able to see how many AI bots are telling us uh or directing people to either our website. Um, and we're really hoping to to to drill down on Tik Tok as well. Um, we're a little, you know, we have a little catching up to do with our staff and so Tik Tok is not here right now. Um, but that's going to be back on the table this year as well. Um, yeah. And I think it's just a really it's a real I pat myself on the back for this one as well because these numbers are not easy to get. And you know, this time next year, we're not going to see 105% active users. We're probably going to see 10 to 15. Um, and

that's usually the benchmark to say success. And 85% in, you know, in page views, that's a pretty astronomical change in percent. Um, and so, you know, this is a year where we really built a lot of momentum and strength. And then moving forward, um, you know, we'll still continue, but it won't be such a massive jump. Um, because a lot of the work that I've done is is built in place and we'll stick around. So, have we considered the benefit of attracting some influencers here?

We have. Yes, that's another So, we were actually in the budget item. It's not influencers, but it's for podcasts. So, essentially getting our ads onto those spaces. Um, as far as influencers, that's something that we haven't like podcasts would be the main correlation that I can I can think of conversations that happened before. As far as influencers, that's a little uh I would have to look that up and see. I heard they're really expensive is the crux, though, for really expensive for a little bit of benefit. Um, and they're always creating more content. And so it's for brand recognition, it's great. For tourism, I'm kind of shy of saying maybe we should hire influencers because the money that we have, if we had a bigger budget and we had a lot of spend, you know, all of the stuff that we're looking at is built in-house. We didn't pay for any of this. These are not paid media efforts. That would be a big paid media effort. Um, that I think would be a good idea. maybe let's give it a little more time to get our Tik Tok account set up, our, you know, our AI reporting system set up set up in place before we start, you know, and then those situations, it would really be like a year or two, we'd have two influencers that would be fairly expensive. Um, compared to our budget, it would take up a big chunk of change. U, but that I think is a great idea once we sort of we really make sure that all of these digital platforms are aligned. Um,

you could be the influencer. Well, yeah. Yeah, nobody listens to me. But, uh, you know, this a challenge that we gave one of your predecessors a few years back. Um, you know, as we looked through the budget, uh, we were spending gobs and gobs of money on materials. And I I asked the simple question, what's the ROI on that? And it's it's a nobody knows. Yeah. And so, you know, my challenge was that we need to quantify the ROI, especially for an organization like this that has very limited dollars. You've got to decide where you want to slice that pie.

And so, you know, I mean, if it turns out that the ROI in an influencer is 10 times what the same amount would be if we spent it on print ads, then that's the right way to go. If print ads is better, then that's right. I mean the nice thing about this is so much of this is very low cost

and so it doesn't take much to get a pretty nice return on a lowcost investment and I think this is part for the course now this is table stakes u because this is how people are consuming their information very few of us go go you know it's not like it used to be where you drove into town the first thing you did was stop by the chamber and pick up a handful of pamphlets you know out of the rack you take all of them and they you know, you'd chuck them away at the end of the trip and wouldn't read half of them. But it's it's a different world. We're omni channel and people expect to be approached in the in the avenues where they consume, right? And so you got to meet them where they're at.

Yeah, I absolutely commend you on getting this up to speed because we were dreadfully behind in my opinion in that in the past. Um, you know, we did not ride that early wave of social media. um which is tragic because small towns who did it seem to pay off u the ones that were involved recreationally. So anyway, but yeah, I just I don't know if you have information on that, but I I'm always looking for what's how do we decide how to parse the funds and do we have information on what it actually amounts to? Right? We spend a dollar here, how many visits do we get for that? um that's hard to capture, but any piece of information we have there guides what we do the next year around.

It is interesting and you and I are probably similar age range. S and have had and I have had that conversation and I've had it with past directors too about the print to digital media and um sometimes I'm a little eye open though because I I mean I think I think in 10 years it's going to be way different than it is right now. But like how many we have like 200 people calling the chamber a month requesting paper visitor packets. I mean, so I mean, it's not we're not to the point yet where I think Yeah. It's not absolutely yet. I think there's still a need for it. In my brain, I don't see the need. Yeah. But if they're requesting it,

Yeah. then what's the age group is commonly asking for it? I mean, I I could make an assumption. He answers the phone. But no, they're usually older. That's what I think. Which are the people having the time to travel and vacation and visit? Like I said, I think in 10 years that's as you know that next generation moves into that age range and or my generation moves into that age range. I think it's I can speak for the older bit. We look at paper. We do like it and they're frustrated that there isn't more of them. Right. Sometimes from my dad every day, you know, for every one of those though, you know, you got a thing sitting in a truck stop and a single QR code

just replaced a thousand. But you don't understand how many people do not know how to use them. That's right. People are mad at the idea of even having to learn these. Oh, I hear every day I hear somebody saying, "Well, I will say because we go to car shows and those people are older and they say, "Oh, this stupid thing I can't get in there to register or something because they don't want to they don't know how to use it. They don't want to use it."

Sometimes it doesn't work. I think from my perspective too, it is important that we have some print media. Um, and but we focus, we do less quality, more quantity or sorry, less quantity, more quality. So really this year I think at least my uh my plan is to just focus on two. The welcome packet, the welcome guide that goes out to everyone moving in here um or anyone who requests information about Uni County that would like to learn about moving here. And then the Eastern Oregon uh visitors guide which goes out to their distribution. we partner, which is great because we co-op. Um, there's al there's also going to be other counties in there as well. Um, but that said, it's like it's one of the main if someone asks about Union County, I'll be able to give them this and be like, it's pages, you know, 15 to 20. Those are that's us right there. And that way, we don't have a bunch of different, you know, uh, distribution outlines that that add up over time. Um, but what's the word I'm looking for? We we we'll spend less on brochures, but have this one source of truth. Um, and then yeah, I'll I'll see if I can get back to what I was thinking about a second. But you had a question.

No, no. I I just the revenue generating person in me had an idea and then I was like, I don't don't need to put that in for advertisements.

No, what I was going to say was is um rather than you guys printing them um why not tell them where they can go and pay somebody to print it for them um versus it being a cost for for you guys to incur. I did make a push for us to whenever we're on a call and someone asks we like you can just go to our website click on this link and it'll open up brochure for you and that way we can also track their location like it's as terrible as this we can track their general location we can track you know what browser they're using we can track all these things how often they're visiting it um and I think that's a push in the right direction um but that said print media is still I feel like you know we all agree here it's there there's still some consumption there so

you know you think about it back when I was driving, taking kids to sporting events, it's always map quest. You get the map quest now. You just Google where you're going. Quest exists. Exactly. So there's Exactly. But I'm just saying like you're saying the people trying to do the QR codes and things like that. There is that mindset of people and there's people that may have that and it's like I don't want to do it like that. I'd rather have it on paper. I know. Yeah. and they happen to have the discretionary funds to travel and to do. They do. And that's part of the key. I mean, we get capture that. Yeah. We get calls and say, "How do I register? Go to our website." I don't I don't know how to do that.

I've had to walk through like half an hour conversation. I thought everybody, what's a website? So, you open that. Yeah.

All right. Can shall we jump to the next slide? So, these are the ones that were not in your original packet. So, I left a piece of paper on all in your counters that showcases um it might look a little confusing because the the 780 and the 692 are just for quarter 1 uh fiscal year quarter 1, two, and three. And this quarter 4 is our is our best season. And so, we're we're we're going to get those numbers up to maybe 13 14 um for the uh inerson watches and phone calls. And then the on the right there is our projected number. And you know the idea is to continue growing. Um and that should that should be you know in 2030 that should be 2,000 is the you know it's a lot.

It is. Yeah. And we're seeing a lot of people that you know and these conversations I have at the visitor center they're always you know they're they're they're people that are excited to visit this community and they're very like like where can I spend my money? What's the niche? I don't want to go to Taco Bell or McDonald's. I want to buy the local cuisine that I can get. Um yeah, there's an idea of that and then we can go to the next slide. So this is the tourism landscape for just general uh United States. Um there we're exceeded to we're going to they're planning on spending sorry tourists are planning on spending $1.4 trillion 2026 in the United States. Um 80 to 90% of Americans traveling in the next 6 months. Um, overall we're in a great position to soak in that people coming to your rural communities um, atmosphere that we're in right now and take advantage of people uh, staying longer, getting more food, and we're going to be leveraging digital marketing and traditional marketing channels to promote new things. Next slide. And this is a top level approach. Uh, in your print magazine, you'll see or print uh, version you'll see crowd rift as content driven. Um, but I've removed that for for this right now. Um, and I just wanted to outline here's our good here's our strategy moving forward. We have seasonal campaigns. We're going to be focused on storytelling and we're going to be really leveraging our digital assets first. And so now we can get into the numbers. So the next slide here is going to be uh the blue

large PDF. Yeah, if you click on that, it should open up. Oh, I forgot to give you access. It's okay. you'll you'll have the printed version right there and we'll be able to use that and I have a printed version as well. Um and we can you can go to the next slide and we can talk through the major changes. It's this blue one, this big blue piece of paper. Yeah. And then we'll talk about the changes on that big blue piece of paper in the next three slides.

Um there were some smaller changes here and there for them but these are the general the larger ones. Um and so and before CO there was a larger amount of TRT funding um going or I should I should say during CO um the funding for TRT uh we weren't able to spend at the chamber. This wasn't my time here. Um and so it the funds started to accumulate and we weren't able to spend it and so the city decided that hey we're going to cut down your budget and so that way you know it just makes sense that you're not sp spending the money people aren't visiting. Tourism is out the window. Um, and so it was lowered and so this year we're going to ask to go back to our normal standing. Um, and so we're asking for $125,000 versus what you gave us last year which was 150.

And the next the year previous was 118, right? So it was Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Next slide. So marketing firm and content creation. This is that uh Crowd Drift I was talking to you about earlier where we had outsourced our content creation to a company called Crowd Drift. Um and this year we're not going to be outsourcing. Um we're going to be doing a lot of it in the house. And you know something I had the conversation with Crowd Rift of it's like why are you not continuing our services? Well there's only a handful of things and events that we could record and you know do in Lrand and we did those things. Yeah we still have maybe like a dozen or so things that we could have done that we didn't do. Um, but that is something we can do in-house moving forward. Lori, our new uh our new rockstar at the chamber, is really great at being out and about um taking photos and she's very digital sav digitally savvy, which is great. We needed someone like her. Um and so instead of spending, you know, 20 $30,000 outsourcing, we're going to lower that to $12,000 and we're still going to keep their database, which is a great clean uh visualization, both mobile and uh desktop friendly for uh our Instagram accounts. Plus, um, anyone who hashtags visit Union County, which we've had a lot of success for, we're able to send them a request, Crowdrift does it for us, that says, "Can we legally use your photos in our artwork?" And so then we're able to not just make our own content, but also have the community support us and we can use that content. Um, because people like making content and they like to get their name out there and it's a win-win for everyone.

Um, next slide. So, staff changes. Previously we were at uh three different roles and you know with the recent uh turnover this year um we boiled it down and so now Lori and I are going to be sharing the responsibility of previously three staff with just two and I think with us going into digital and that essentially the optimization of operations programming where it's like instead of having to manually type in our uh receipt information instead we can go to a PDF and you can just control F find the invoice number and spend 20 minutes flipping for physical papers to find you know the next thing. We also have updated our Google drive or we created a Google drive which is previously we had this comments folder with like 20 years of not 20 but like 10 years of old files that were not organized and they were not it took us 10 minutes just to find the right thing and then we found after reading it oh it's not the right thing we have to go find something else. So, we've moved everything to Google Drive. It's just going to optimize our workflow and it makes it so everything is, you know, um, searchable. It's indexable, meaning when we have to find something, we can find it just by searching the name or what we think and then it will pop up. Um, and then also it's great because it's shared amongst our board. So, it's less touch points and there's more, you know, online communication. If you want, if you have a question, look at the report. If you have a question, go to your Google Drive. You'll be able to find your answer there. Um, and so we are lowering our staff budget from 34 to 26. Yeah. And that's it. Questions comments, concerns. I think last year it was like a 15-minute conversation. So, we got 45 minutes. I saw John once. It's okay.

Had nothing to do with your present. I know. I'm just I'm just I'm just playing. I was literally my third day here. Awesome. Yeah. So that's Yeah, that's a proposed budget and then also attached to the chamber proposed budget as well. Um and I looked at the website. I had a few suggestions for additions on the website that I'll just give you. Sure. Yeah. Okay. How do you find this? Um, and um, I'd really like to see the calendar used more. It's something that like

there's not much on there. We barely get any submitted and there is there is it's a clunky system and I remember talking to you about it or when our in our last city hall two months ago. um we're not getting much people submitting our information and it's difficult and I was thinking I was literally like what if we just had an intern position or something part-time where it's the person's job is specifically to just go and make sure that all the events in town are being put on our calendar event because it's so timeconuming and it does it's just it's it's very difficult and then sometimes we don't get all the events and then you know it's it's there is work to be done there and I absolutely agree I think there needs to be something that is is done with the calendar. There needs to be more sort of calendar.

Kind of a plug for you guys. Um Lori was at the town hall last week. Um she talked a little bit about it and just today she put out on the uh on social media um the submission time frames for people to get stuff into her. Then she's going to push it out and she's putting our stuff in there as well. Um so she'sing I don't know how sustainable it is. She's awesome. Um, but and I'm pretty sure she's gonna get stolen. So, she's she's got some game. She does. She has a doctor as well. So, I don't know how lucky we got, but yeah, she's on the team and I'm hoping to keep her around. So, I'm not saying I'm not going to try and poach her, but poach me.

All right, you're on. I can build you reports. You guys familiar with this neighborhood alerts thing? The neighborhood signed up for this. Yeah, the one with the green icon. neighborly or something. Uh I get I get emails about all kinds of things. It's town events. It's and I'm like, "Wow, it's kind of cool. I don't remember signing up for it. I must have been somewhere along the lines." But it's called Neighborly or Neighbor Neighborhood, isn't it? It's called It says Lrand Alerts, Neighborhood Alerts. It's alerts at neighborhoodalerts.com. So, is it email or does it come as a

It's an email. Comes as an email. And I get it I get it periodically. So, it happens. It's kind of interesting. I get it if if a neighbor buys or sells a property, like if the property goes up. So, it's like anyway, it seems to track all sorts of legal notifications. I get it about events, and I'm like, that's kind of a slick thing. Again, I I don't know how it got my email, but I've actually been grateful for it. And I' I've thought like again, some sort of unified, you know, platform where you can disseminate that. Um because we do we we are not um we don't have a centralized calendar very good in this community. We used to have a paper that would have an calendar and it's kind of gone out the window.

It's like the chamber should it's naturally should be the it's just hard to maintain and it's hard to get the information sometimes there needs that's why I'm saying there needs to be not a revolving door. It needs to be us going and soliciting for information because otherwise we don't get any events. And you know, part of me is like, well, I'm not going to I'm it just seems for for our two people staff to be like, we're going to own all the events going in town. That's why it's like this conversation, hey, if we hire someone just really specifically for events, actually, but that's food for thought.

Easter Seals um offers up to 29 hours a week, part-time paid, reimburseed to your staff to pay for a part-timer. Um, and he has a certain criteria that has to be met. um uh in the past um what do you call it? Uh the main Main Street has used it. Um but I can send you the information on it, but bottom line is I bet you you get the help that you're looking for. Yeah, I think that would be great several times. Yeah. I mean, and I don't know. I guess we can we can ask that question. Is it the chamber's responsibility? I I don't know whose it is, but but we you need to have some common source. the chamber is probably in a nice position to consider talked about for years and years and years,

but I mean we've talked about it for years at the chamber too and and it's grown and then it shrunk and it's grown and shrunk and um but it's definitely an opportunity

but I I do think we need to keep coming back to the the changing way that people receive and get information. You know, again the the newspaper, the television, like the the old classic media formats are in decline. And the problem with with digital media is again that it is so diverse. And so like I don't have a Tik Tok account. I don't have an Instagram account. I have Facebook. I have LinkedIn. So if it's on Tik Tok, Instagram, I never see it. Um you know, and and that that I think we're all like that. We we dial in and we're getting ads that are projected to us. It um that omni channel experience has to be there. I'm not sure how to do it, but we've got to have eyes on it. Um I didn't know when the last car show was here. I didn't know the last run we had. Seriously clueless about it and then I'm learning in hindsight, oh that happened last weekend. No idea. So, you know, when somebody like me who is engaging with the community every single day, 40 hours a week, I'm on this body and I don't have a clue when major events are happening in our community. There's a problem. I assure you that the majority of our community probably doesn't have a clue when these things are going on. But these are the revenue sources that drive

community what you do and and other areas in the community. And so we've we've got to somehow grapple with that, find a solution. Let's talk about this afterward. I'm we'll figure out a solution now. Absolutely. And we've also think we've done we were one of the this conversation. It's it's a tough one, but radio ads as well or radio calendar events like a weekly, you know, here's all things happening in Union County. Um and then we can partner with Elorn Media and then Lor's social media post is one and then the online calendar is another. Um, yeah, but let's let's John, does our new app have push alerts? It does, right? Um, that's actually maybe look at something like that.

We just need to get together and talk. We've been talking about it for a while. We just need to make it happen. But we've got some stuff that um that I think we you guys could absolutely we we offer to you and be able to use as additional tool. Okay. I have a question too. Um, I mean, until we get this kind of figured out, a lot of us are all in different circles and so forth and we find out different information and different activities and so forth. We can contact you and let you know once we hear something and you might know it already if not, you know, but we can do our part, I think, as well as the council members because we're go online until we figure it out. Go to their site and Yeah. and just put a thing that says events.

Yeah. It's not hard to do if you use it, but the problem is it's not for lack of having told people. No. Um, it's just a matter of people people want. Yeah. Because there's a lot of there's a lot of websites that I I have is like around what's happening in Eastern Oregon. And then there's um there's a whole bunch of different websites and we could just search those and that would be wonderful resources.

So, I have a couple of comments and a question. Um, I'm just glad to hear about the continued work with EOBA, Eastern Oregon Visitors Association, and their visitors guide. Um, because I know from my experience, um, a lot of times folks want to go explore Eastern Oregon and their initial thought is, well, that's Bender Hood River. And so getting plugged in with the OVA so that at least when folks are thinking EOV thinking Eastern Oregon that Lrand is sort of popping up in that mix and and you're reaching folks who might not originally be thinking Lrand as a destination

and at least now you're you're part of that broader piece. My question is um have you engaged much in the last year or do you plan to engage more with Eastern Oregon Visitors Association andor Travel Oregon through some of their fam tours, Travel Writers, some of the programs like that? Well, there's nothing on Slate right now, but that's something that we could look into. Partnering with and then what was it again? You said the so fam tours and travel writers they typically right okay

travel Oregon usually puts those together and then Eastern Oregon coordinates like their regional leg of those fam tours. Um it goes back kind of to the idea of the influencers except these are generally um either tour operators um or their travel writers for specific magazines or different trade sort of segments. So they might have like a outdoor recreation group of travel writers who write for various publications. Um, and I found it in my experience that's been a really great way to again um, get the word out there to folks who may not be originally thinking of Lrand or Union County,

right? But they read a story or they hear, but then they read about you in, you know, Outdoor Magazine. I think when I was in Baker, we partnered with Pink Pike and so we moved from Union County in and I think they got some really great exposure from that having a national publication picking up that story. most of that effort is or at least cost effective effort is coordinated through Travel Oregon EOVA and so and they're always looking for local DMOS to partner with and help you know take on pieces of that tour when those folks come through. So,

okay. Yeah, it's something we can look at and I think um I think I know that there's still some line items for print publications and so um yeah, that isn't really print because these might all be digital and I just talked about pink I think when we were writing the budget but that's the one that I've looked into for your organization that it does it's too expensive for that organization but it would probably meet uh budget a local travel writer that comes in as part of an EOVA Eastern Oregon Outdoor Recam tour who writes an article that pops up. Right. Okay.

Yeah. And for every like Pink Bike is a mountain bike specific um global website um based out of Seattle I believe. But um yeah, they they have a lot of marketing options and the podcast we talking about was another option where it's actually there's there's only like 10 mountain bike podcasts in the United States and Oh wow.

You reach a lot of mountain bike specific enthusiasts. I listen to two of them myself because I'm a nut. Um, but yeah, I mean there's bang for buck and things like that with with mirror and what we have with 60 miles of non motorized trails and and a lot of people don't know about it. So, it's bang for buck on some of those things. Road biking, too. Yep. And gravel is getting huge right now and we have a pretty fantastic um Yeah. area for gravel biking. Yeah, that's something we can look into. I I speaking of this too, there's like there's a a lot of hunting things that I was like hoping to do, but at the same time, I get a lot of feedback to say like, "No, don't promote hunting

because that's our this is our hunting." They don't know. They're like, "No, there's a lot of hunters that come here because they know." Yeah. You see them in Safeway. It seems it's that cost effectiveness, right? It's like, "Do we need to No, it's cuz everyone already knows Easter is the place to go to. We don't want their favorite." Yeah. Tell them where the morels are and where the health are. Yeah. No, but we could we could get them to a night or two in a hotel and Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What else? What about the hour mark? Okay.

You know, I I've asked for years, what's our version of Roundup? You know, I mean, it this drives a lot. A lot. It's a money maker. It really is. And not only that, but it has put Pendleton on the map nationwide. I mean, I was talking to the guy from Florida the other day. Where are you from? LRA. Where's that? You know Pendleton? Oh, yeah. I know Pendleton. Yeah. I mean, people across the US know Pendleton because of Roundup. They bring in, you know, you look at the artists they land in there. All those sorts of things. I'm not s suggesting we're going to get something like that. And that that's created over decades, but hundred years,

right? But, you know, I mean, at at some level, I still don't feel like we have a signature event. We dabble. We have a little bit of this and a little bit of this and a, you know, and we don't have a signature event that really draws people here once a year. Um, uh, that anyway, I just just to throw that out there. It's still something that I would love to see happen. Um, I think one of the things that uh like the five 10 year plan, right, which isn't presented in here, um, but the 10-year plan is there's the national archery um scene that's happening. I'm sure you talked to the gentleman. That's a lot of money coming in and it would be a 10ear program.

It's going to be it's a big deal. He's actually going to California this week, right? Um, to talk about that. Um, it's just he's cards coast to chester right now. So, um, until until he get he irons more of it out. But I I do I was hesitating to bring it up. I think something Yeah, I love an idea like that. You know, you can you can get something and it Yeah, it's going to be niche, but but hey, it it's going to pull people in from, you know, different corners and yeah, that would be perfect. Something like that. Again, we something that's ours that brings, you know, Squim has the lavender festival, Pendleton has Roundup. I mean, you can we could all name communities in the area that we have traveled hours to for a specific event.

Um, well, the Bear Festival brought in so many people. My problem with that is it's not familyfriendly. No, it wasn't. So, you immediately exclude a huge proportion of people who would attend that event because if you don't drink and you don't want your kids around that alcohol, then it's done. So, it's fine. can call it a fun little gig, but you it you just created small market. We are also taking over Thunder at the Peak, which brings in 1,500 2,000. I don't know what Thunder at the Peak is. Fireworks. There you go. It's a fireworks show happening in Buffalo Peak. We'll see you there July 4th. Yeah. Um there'll be it'll be a fun exploring. It's the 25th 250th anniversary of the United States. So, we're spending a little more in fireworks.

Um that can potentially bring in, you know, and I guess those are the what's it the the the lower app? I'm forgetting the lower the fruit the Did somebody not say I'm trying to get the hanging fruit low hanging fruit low hanging fruit is like it's not really that but it's you know it's something that we can do and it's real and it's happening this year and that's going to bring in 15 to two 20 thou 2000 people um I wish maybe in 10 years right 20,000 um that'll be more than the population of county uh the uh the OSAA event which is a tournament that's going to last 10 years potentially speaking we could bring in 500 to a,000 to maybe even 1500. The girls volleyball, they always said, "Hey, girls volleyball tournaments." Did you you have a number for them? Yeah, he he was there for it.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a number though for that?

No, it's a hard it's very difficult to track. And the other problem was that this year, not problem, but the, you know, hurdle was that a lot of the state champions were from North Powder, from Emler, from all of our areas and they don't have to stay in a hotel and they can just drive 20 minutes. So hopefully, you know, I mean, not to say that I want our teams to lose, but hopefully we get some people from the West Coast because they bring a lot of money. Um, and so I think, yeah, I don't know if it's ever going to be something like Pendleton, but I think small events like that are something that we could focus on. And then having that long-term vision of this national rifle, archery, um, to own and and, you know, there's what's great about, you know, Pendleton is that they kind of own that that that cowboy, you know, vibe over there. And so we don't we do that but we have a lot of arts and culture and like a lot of other things. And so um I think you know while we can't have one big massive event for now having those small events until we have a an idea and you know part of the problem is is too is if

we do have something like the Elgen stamp or that's what we we have the Elgen stamp geek right and so like that is our event and so like it wouldn't be creating a new event specific to LRAND but it would be using the things that we already have in place and optimizing them and taking something like that partnership. Same at Lad Marsh Bird Festival. Y there's a lot of burrs that spend a lot of money in this country, you know. Can you can you expand that? Can you expand the Elgen Stampede? You're right. I mean, maybe maybe you don't have to start from scratch. You can use something existing. Um, you know, we got a big agriculture footprint here. Um,

uh, yeah, just I realize I don't want to start a whole new discussion here, but as we look at this, it's it's something that I think should remain top of mind. Absolutely. Um because one successful event like that could top the revenue of all of the other events combined easily within a year for a county like ours. Yeah. You just have to find the people who will who will run it. That's the hard part is getting people involved in something like that. And at that point it would be like a year-long organization too where they don't really hard to get people involved. We got all the right people in the room right now.

Right. Well, no, that's good. I mean, from my perspective, not even as the chamber, that's from living elsewhere for 25 years and then moving back to the grant. Um, and I lived in Pendleton for 10 years, so you know, that drive for tourism in Pendleton is is seen and but it's also because of the infrastructure that is in Pendleton that we don't really have here. I mean, they have the airport, that arena, and their convention center is twice the size. Well, we don't have a convention center now, I guess. Um, but I mean they have, you know, that's why they have a a Harley-Davidson rally because they have the infrastructure to do it and the hotel infrastructure and I guess,

you know, to the city council, it's like I mean, the conversation should be if we get that opportunity, how in the community do we build the infrastructure to support an event like that that makes it work? I just got here in August, guys. Give me a little on you, but but I mean that's done a lot. I think a great example of that as well is the OSA event wouldn't have happened if we didn't get the Hilton. They because they need to have enclosed spacing for high school students. They can't just be in a hotel with open doors and that's the only one that had that enclosed space. And so that's a great example of we're now because of this we're able to do that. Um and you know yeah just many hands in the pocket but absolutely having like a 5 to 10 year growth plan like that is something that we um we need to do.

Okay. Thanks for all your work. Any other questions then? Let me add another darla at the end of the budget then.

Okay. Lum is going to adjourn the