IN Indiana, Promoting Tourism in the Hoosier State

Hi.

I'm Jeff Rea, your host for Economic Outlook.

Welcome to our program.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Please make plans each week to join us as we discuss the region's most important economic development initiatives with a panel of experts annually, more than 81 million visitors come to explore Indiana.

And those visitors spend over $13.2 billion in the Hoosier State.

We're taking a closer look at tourism in Indiana with a focus on the state's new IN Indiana campaign.

Coming up on Economic Outlook.

Whether it's a visit to iconic Indiana landmarks like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or Notre Dame Stadium, or one of Indiana's 32 state parks, or even some of Indiana's popular festivals, wineries, breweries and distilleries, visitors are finding that there is more to do in Indiana.

The state has recently launched a new effort to grow tourism efforts in the Hoosier State.

And we're sitting down today to hear more about that from Elaine Bedel, the secretary of the Indiana Destination Development Corporation.

Elaine, welcome back.

Thank you, Jeff.

I appreciate it.

Appreciate the opportunity to kind of share our story.

We're thrilled to have you back.

And we had a great conversation last time you were with us about what's happening in tourism in Indiana.

That's changed since then by way of just a reminder as we're getting started here.

Talk to us a little bit about the Indiana Destination Development Corporation and what the secretary of that does.

That's a good question.

Actually, we're a startup.

We're a new entity for the state of Indiana.

It all came about in 2017 when the legislators asked for a task force to be created to determine how other states in our our country handle tourism, what the funding is, and that type of thing.

So a recommendation was made back to the legislatures and it got approved in 2019 to actually create a quasi government agency, Indiana Destination Development Corporation, to replace what was then the Indiana Office of Tourism Development.

But at that same time, the governor kind of expanded the mission so that it's still important to bring visitors here and tell our story, to get people to come and experience Indiana.

But it's also to tell our quality of life and quality of place story in order to have talent, be interested in coming and working for our corporations from other places and for all the graduates that we get here from all over the country to give them a taste of Indiana as well.

So they might think about staying in Indiana, working for our corporations and making their their their careers and their livelihood here.

I love the focus on that concept that some of those that visit may stay and work or do business.

And perhaps I'm glad you're doing that.

So, Elaine, give us just a general high level, you know, kind of what is the state of tourism in Indiana, if you will?

Well, you know, tourism represents about 10% of our GDP in Indiana.

So about oh, and it's about 37 million, something like that.

That that comes from tourism.

Pre-pandemic, we were ground 210,000 workers in that industry.

We haven't quite recovered to that level now, but we've made some strides.

We're probably about 188, 185,000 at this point in time.

So it's an important part of our economy.

But I will tell you, there's opportunity to even do more because a lot of people from all the surveys we do focus groups, etc., people just don't know what Indiana has to offer if they've never been here.

They didn't go to school here.

They don't have friends or relatives here.

They are basically a blank slate and it's nice to know that at least it's not a negative perception.

It's more of a neutral perception.

So we've got lots of opportunity to kind of raise that to a positive perception, which will bring more people here to visit and consequently expose them to the state, raise that perception and make it an opportunity that they could either say bring a business here or start a business here, that they may take a job here at some point in time, retire here, whatever it might be.

But right now, our story has been under a bushel basket.

And we've got to take that off and and really tell the world what we've got available here.

It's a great place.

I love Indiana, and I think everybody else who comes here, even if they didn't, if they are born and raised Hoosiers, once they're here, they really love what our state has to offer.

Right.

Elaine, when I when I think about what are some of the top attractions in the state, where do most people come that are visiting?

What are some of the things high on their list of things to see when they're here?

Well, you know, I think when Dunes National Park came into existence, that what used to be a national shoreline up there, but that puts it on a lot of people's bucket list, know they want to go see all the national parks.

So that had a lot of visitors coming before that naming.

And now it's even more so.

I think that's one of ours.

The other one is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I mean, talk about an international attraction.

We get people from all over the world who come here to experience that race every year.

And then there's there's places like Holiday Worland Splashing Safari.

I mean, they bring a million visitors in a year from outside of our state as well.

French Lick Resort, I mean, a beautiful place that's down in the hills of Indiana that people love to come to.

So there's quite a few places like that.

And having the number two or the number one children's museum in the country right here in central Indiana is another big draw.

So I could go on and on.

There's there's quite a few that people again, once they know about it, they want to come see it.

And we just got to tell that story.

Yeah.

So Elaine let's shift a little bit and talk about.

So you've said a couple times already that this we've got to tell our tell our story.

And so, you know, we're in the north part of the the state, we're in the cloud of Pure Michigan.

And they do a phenomenal job of sort of drawing attention to Michigan attractions.

But but Indiana's kind of launched an effort to to to tell more of Indiana's story.

And I see it on your lapel there.

Do so talk a little bit about, you know what Indiana is trying to do with the IN Indiana effort.

Oh, thank you very much.

Well, you're right about Michigan.

And the idea with Michigan is that if you hear Pure Michigan, whether you've ever been there or not, you get it.

You get an image in your mind of what that might look like.

And they started that campaign in 2005.

So they've had quite a few years to kind of continue to put that out there, and they've done a great job of doing that.

What we're trying to do is figure out how we can tell the world our story.

And again, from all of the focus groups and research that we've done, people just don't know what's in Indiana.

They don't give us credit for for having Notre Dame up in South Bend.

They don't know it's here.

They know the great asset, but they don't know that it's in Indiana.

Same way with Purdue, same way with Lilly.

I've been told Lilly has been headquartered in New York.

Not the case.

Lilly's right here in Indiana.

So what we want to do with our IN Indiana is to basically get people to recognize the assets that are here.

We're proud of every business here, every organization, every municipality.

And we want people to understand and be certain that they're in Indiana.

So we came up with the identifier IN Indiana and then let everybody make up their own headlines.

We're using more to discover as part of our tourism attraction.

But you can life is better in Indiana.

I mean, you can come up with whatever your area of interest might be, create that headline that complements what you're already doing.

And there's lots of examples everywhere of people doing that.

I mean, you could even just put Notre Dame in Indiana.

I mean, it could be South Bend visit South Bend in Indiana.

It's easy to create that creative for a special event, change it when you want to change it and just put it on your website so that when people start exploring, they start seeing IN Indiana.

And once they see that over and over and over, we've created that a really big megaphone to let people know this is in Indiana.

And that will help raise the perception, which is one of the first things we just have to do and to get that word out.

And and, you know, on the other side of that, we need funding to do that.

And so that's one of the situation.

The circumstances we're under now is that we don't have the funding and we've got to share our story with the legislators to hopefully get it.

A nice budget.

Yeah.

Important legislative session coming up on that.

So.

So, Elaine, you have been I have seen and I've seen you up in the north part.

You've been in every corner of the state launching this and helping people understand what you're trying to accomplish with this.

What's been the reception as you've traveled Indiana so far about the IN Indiana campaign?

Well, you know, people love it.

I mean, they say it's simple, but it works.

You know, we did some focus groups before we put it out there and we talked to consumers, but also some of our own destination marketing organizations and in particular those those entities said, you know, in the past, Indiana would come out with their slogan or their tagline or whatever, and it just didn't work.

But this they can make work is they can make it their own.

And so we've had positive reception from our own industry, as well as everybody that we've talked to, that they love the idea that they can create their own headline and and use the IN Indiana.

So we have free toolkits.

And that's the other thing people love.

We actually were having a conversation with a mayor who loved and he says, well, how much is this going to cost me?

Not a thing, you know, because all of the artwork is done, all the templates are done.

You just have to go to VisitIndiana.com/toolkit and download what you want to use and start creating and there's a quick start there.

So you just put in the headline you want and download it and you've got it and you can use it in your on your website, like I said, or on the back of a brochure or wherever you feel like it's appropriate.

We'd love to have it on the side of trucks and service vehicles that go all around the state and even outside the state.

Just kind of saying, Yeah, we're from Indiana and we're proud of it.

Great.

No, it's it's been very exciting.

I've had a chance to work closely with the tourism bureau on that.

And I know up here locally it's been well received and we'll look to integrate it in.

And I do encourage folks to visit the toolkit that Elaine mentioned to figure out how to integrate it into their business.

Elaine, we're going to continue our conversation in just a second, but I'm going to leave the studio real quick.

We're going to go out into the field.

George Lepeniotis.

My co-host is out for a little local perspective on IN Indiana and tourism.

George, let me toss it to you.

Thanks, Jeff.

I'm in Elkhart at the Elkhart Visitor Center, just off the toll road a little bit north.

I'm joined by Jon Hunsberger.

Jon, thanks for being with us today.

John, the last time I was here was a completely different facility and a completely different executive director.

So thank you for taking the time to both introduce our viewers to yourself and also to your new welcome center, visitor center, which I know isn't that new, but with COVID, I think you opened in 2019, so many people, especially from the area, may not have seen it.

But thank you for being with us today.

Tell me a little bit about your job.

How did it come to be that you are the executive director of the Elkhart County Visit Convention and Visitors Bureau?

Yeah, very exciting to be here.

And thank you.

I've been with the CVB now for four years.

I came in as the director of Destination Development and my predecessor, Diana Lawson, already had a plan to retire.

And COVID actually helped that along a little bit.

But yes, she retired then in 2020 where I took over.

My journey to here has been one that I was unexpected.

My background really is in planning and urban development, and so we have long time had a position here as a with an urban planner on our staff.

And so my, my, my job here really came into as an urban planner.

Well, and that's funny that you say that for for folks at home that don't know an urban planner is a professional who helps communities develop and grow in an orderly manner.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, that's a fair statement.

And here at the at the CVB, your job is to create a sense of place.

Exactly.

So those two actually do go, even though they may not necessarily you may not think of them together.

They do go hand in hand.

They very much go hand in hand.

Well, let's talk about Elkhart County, both kind of zooming in, but also on a broader scale.

You know, we all know Elkhart County as the RV capital of the world.

It's been said we've done other episodes, even the season on some of the exciting things that are happening in the RV industry and I know that's a big draw, but your draw here in Elkhart, County, actually goes beyond just RVs.

Tell us a little bit about why people come to visit Elkhart.

Well, the main reason that we've found that people come to Elkhart County is to enjoy and experience Amish culture and Amish history.

And beyond that, we have urban centers in Elkhart County where there's arts and culture as well, and with museums and live performances.

And so we do find that there is a mix of visitors coming for various reasons and there's a lot of crossover with those visitors.

And we try to amplify and and tell people about that story about Amish community and culture, but then also our entrepreneurs and our artists that are really building our urban centers and our our communities.

Well, yeah, that's great.

And when we talk about the Amish country, we'll call it Amish country.

Indiana's Amish country is in and around Elkhart County.

It goes beyond its borders.

But really the heart of it, the start of it is right here in Elkhart County.

Right?

I mean, Nappanee.

And you start heading east toward Shipshewana.

What is that what does that experience look like for some of our visitors who maybe haven't seen it?

What would a weekend in Amish country look like?

Well, a weekend in Amish country would be that you may be able to stay in a hotel.

Of course, we'd always encourage that.

But then you were able to drive along what we call the Heritage Trail.

And this is a 90 mile audio driving tour throughout Elkhart County, as well as connecting in with Shipshewana.

But the experience would be that you would be driving through the countryside, for instance, and really seeing really a pastoral view of of of our community.

But then along the way, you can hear with the audio driving tours, you can hear about the history and the stories behind and about Elkhart County.

And then there are stops along the way.

So you can actually stop in to an Amish owned business and experience either there, you know, the products or and hear their stories and then you can continue along.

So it's really an immersive experience to be able to explore Elkhart County.

And it's very unique.

It's it's a one of a kind.

And so where do people find this audio tour?

You can find out here at the visitor center.

We also have partners throughout and along the Heritage Trail where you can pick up the driving tour.

So it comes as a CD, it comes as an MP3 on a flash drive.

You can also download it from Spotify.

Okay.

We also have a paper copy of the map.

All right.

Along, you know, it's funny because we ran out of time here, but as in the final few seconds, we also know that a lot has been done downtown Elkhart, and that's a big deal.

The Aquatics Center, the Hotel Elkhart, the Lerner, the riverfront, the River Walk District.

That, too, is is that part of the heritage trail?

Is that part of that that experience?

Yeah.

So that does follow right along the heritage trail and those urban experiences and what we're developing and quality of place truly is an expression of our entrepreneurial spirit.

But then it also is helping our residents connect with quality place, building a place that people want to then come visit.

So it all is coming back.

Full circle is as we're planning for residents, we're planning for tourists at the same time.

Well, thank you very much for being with us today.

Thank you for showing us around the awesome facility.

Jeff, back to you in the studio.

I can tell you I'm going to pick up an MP3 flash drive, plug it in my car and go for a 90 mile drive around Elkhart and see the sights.

Hey, Jeff Rea, back in the studio.

So, George, thank you so much.

Appreciate the chance to get some local perspective there.

We're sitting down again with Elaine Bedel.

Elaine is the secretary of the Indiana Destination Development Corporation, the lead tourism effort in the state.

So, Elaine, thanks for spending a little bit more time with us.

So so as we're as we're going, you know, as I watch, you know, kind of what's happened in the tourism space, we've mentioned Pure Michigan.

I've seen the California commercials that have every celebrity in the world.

I've seen Wisconsin where they did some airplane and some other, you know, kind of takes on it.

So this you know, so some states are pretty sophisticated in this effort to try to attract visitors.

Talk a little bit about, you know, kind of what's happening around the country and what states are doing to to try to bring visitors.

And then how Indiana compares to some of that.

Right.

Well, the other states around us and we just talk about our neighboring states, they have done an excellent job of bringing in their marketing into the state of Indiana.

You see their commercials on TV from, you know, Illinois, but also Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky.

And they're all, you know, bombarding our citizens to come and visit their states.

And unfortunately, many people think we're doing the same thing there.

But unfortunately, we're not we don't have the funding to be able to do that.

But that's what we're working toward getting.

And because you need even though we're doing social media, we're pushing things out unless you can put money behind that, it doesn't come up on anybody's search bars.

You know, it doesn't come up high on that list that people will be exposed to it and see it.

So, you know, part of our issue is that we're a little bit at a disadvantage at this point in time against what other states around us are spending.

I mean, when you think about it, Michigan has been spending $40 million in the last several years.

Ohio spends about 35 million, Kentucky 30 million.

And I think they got even a little bit more from ARPA funds.

Illinois regularly spends about 73 million.

They added ARPA funds to them and got 90 million for this this year.

So all of them are really outspending against our budget, which is about four and a half million to run an organization and to promote Indiana to the world.

And so what we have to do is kind of educate that money, money invested in this effort comes back in many, many ways to Indiana.

And so we are doing some some small campaigns.

We'll be able to measure the return on investment and take that kind of information to our legislators and educate them on what other states are doing, where we're probably hurting ourselves by not getting our story out there, and then offer to show them some of the return on investment that we are getting.

For every dollar that we invest in telling Indiana's story, we can get anywhere from, you know, two and a half, $3 back up to $18 back.

I mean, that's what some of the states around us are doing.

And so, again, I think the legislators just haven't had that information in the past.

And and to be quite honest, we've dug deep to get it all and put it together.

And so we're we're willing and anxious to tell each of the legislatures about that.

And we've had some really good conversations to date with many of them that understand the importance of do doing this.

There is there is really that economic impact here.

You know, if we don't get the talent here, our businesses can't survive and they will move elsewhere where the talent is.

And, you know, to your example earlier, you know, people when businesses come in, they want to come in and they want to see the community that they will be working with and that their people will be living in.

And they want it to be something that they'll enjoy and that they'll see as a nice quality of life.

And so that's what we're trying to tell our story, but we need the funding to be able to do that.

And so we're going to work hard with the legislators this next session.

Yeah, and I I'd like to think that with this focus, especially on the talent piece, you have the unique vantage point of having been the former head of of Indiana's economic development efforts as well too.

So this talent piece becomes such a critical piece and and not only attracting the talent, but retaining the talent.

Can you talk for a second just about the the retention of of that talent as well?

Like, I like often times think in our own community, you know, we have to sell our own people on what all of this has to offer to talk about, you know, college students in Indiana and trying to retain that talent for the state.

That is definitely a focus of ours because Indiana always falls in the top five states for recruiting net inbound students to our colleges and universities.

So they're coming from all over the country and sometimes all over the world.

Indiana, you're here for 4 to 6 years.

How do we get them a taste of Indiana so they can think about staying here when they go?

The other numbers are we're 14th in the state and producing graduates.

Unfortunately, we're 40th in retaining graduates.

So we've got lots of opportunity.

So we're going to put all kinds of programs into place to help get those college students off campus in many cases.

And learning about Indiana and also connecting them to businesses for internships.

You know, we're not creating internships, but we're hoping to connect them to all the businesses and encourage our own businesses to do that as a way to find their talent.

And I think if we can do that, we can be successful.

Now, some of them, because they're from out of state, may feel like they they're going to go back somewhere else to work.

But if we can get them open to taking their second job here, then that's a victory for us as well.

I mean, I was told the other day that that our college grads today will probably have 12 different job changes during their their careers.

That was not my case when I came out of college, a much lower number than that.

But so if we can get them open to that second or third or fourth job offer and get them back to Indiana, I think we just have to get them here for a little while and they want to stay.

And our own graduates, obviously, they're curious about what's somewhere else.

And, you know, we did it we did a series of videos earlier called Hoosiers by Choice.

And you can go to our website to see those.

And those are people who came here from somewhere else and really talk about why they love Indiana.

Heartwarming stories to a born and raised Hoosier.

We are now going to do a series called Home Again because there's an awful lot of people who left Indiana and now who've come back and really say, you know, I thought I'd find something there, but right here is where I want to be.

My quality of life is better here.

My job opportunities are great here.

So we want to share some of those stories as well.

But it's an important message to get out because we create so much wonderful talent.

We just got to keep it here.

Yeah.

So so let's start.

We're in our last 3 minutes or so.

You've been instrumental in your leadership at the state, both doing excellent government now and in terms of the investment in the place, you know, the quality of places, the thing, you know, we've got to retain talent.

We've got to invest in these attractions that people are going to come visit to talk to us just for a second about Indiana's commitment to that and some of the things you've done in recent years with Regional Cities and READI and how those will help that effort?

Absolutely.

When I was serving as president of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, that was the time of the of the regional cities grants and I think we saw that that wonderful impact on different communities, the three regions that were participating in that with the funding that was $42 million each was matching funds to come in.

And I think from that experience, that's when the READI grants came in and that $500 million investment, it's wonderful.

And really it's to create that quality of place and the IEDC is implementing that proces and hopefully they'll even be a second round at some point in time.

But it has impacted communities and the quality of life is so important there, the quality of place.

And so what we want to do is tell that story.

So that's where we connect in.

You know, IEDC has been working with employers to make sure they know where their talent pipeline comes from.

We want to tell the story of the quality of life of this place so that that talent will easily say, I'd love to come to Indiana.

So it's a it's a great partnership that we have and we want to continue to do that.

But, you know, I kind of see the IEDC as really just telling that story and getting the word out because we've got the the venues to do that, but we just haven't been able to take advantage of it because of some funding issues.

Right.

So Elaine, as we begin to wrap here, so get give that make the pitch, the pitch, the elevator pitch to somebody who has never been to Indiana, who's thinking about visiting, what might you tell them?

Oh, that's a great question.

And I think if I were talking to someone, we talk about the quality of life, obviously the many things that they can do.

We talk about you can buy a house here.

There's many people who have come here from other places.

They buying a home was not part of what they thought they could ever do.

They can buy a nice house here.

We've got opportunities and careers.

I mean, people also think in the tech sector, no, no, no, no.

Indiana is a tech sector.

You know, biotech, all kinds of technology goes on here.

Even Agtech, you know, people think of as a farming state.

But it's technology.

We're way beyond just growing things.

We're we're really beyond that with all the technology that we've got in that area as well.

So there's lots of things to offer people here, let alone the wonderful parks that we've got, the state parks, the trails for people to run, walk, ride.

I mean, they're just they're just everywhere.

And people need to see the beauty.

We've got a state that is so different from the north to the south and it's beautiful on both sides and great opportunities to really enjoy life.

Yeah, we don't have mountains.

We aren't.

We don't have oceans.

We do have Lake Michigan, as you know, up there, which is just beautiful.

And and tourist writers have travel writers have told us it's the most beautiful beach they've seen in the world.

So we know it's great.

And again, we need people to experience that right here in Indiana.

So I think I could go on and on about just the the value you have here, the the opportunities you have here, and the ability to kind of grow your career but also have a wonderful place to raise a family as well.

And, you know, when you think about get on that, get in, come to the airport, which is the best airport in the country for our mid-market being the Annapolis International Airport, you've got another great airport up in South Bend.

You can fly almost anywhere to enjoy the mountains when you would like it as well as the coast.

So I think we're positioned in the middle of the country is a great opportunity for people to really be successful.

Great, awesome.

Well, she's Elaine Bedel.

She's from the Indiana Destination Development Corporation.

Elaine, thank you so much for being our guest today and helping us understand more about IN Indiana.

Good luck as that rolls out and we'll look forward to having you back for updates as we go.

I appreciate that, Jeff.

Thank you very much.

That's it for our show today.

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