How To Leverage a City's Features To Attract Visitors With Leonard Hoops, President and CEO of Visit Indy
Leonard Hoops is the President and CEO of Visit Indy, Indianapolis, Indiana's official destination management organization. He oversees the growth of central Indiana's convention, tourism, and event business, which contributes nearly $6 billion to the economy. Under his leadership, Indianapolis became a top city for conventions, with Visit Indy consistently recognized as a "Best Place to Work" in Indiana. Before joining Visit Indy, Leonard was the Executive Vice President of San Francisco Travel and has held significant roles at the Convention & Visitors Bureau in both Sacramento and San Jose. His accolades include being named an “Indiana Living Legend” by the Indiana Historical Society and one of the “25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry” by Successful Meetings.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Leonard Hoops details why Indianapolis is a special place to visit
What are Leonard’s most effective strategies for attracting people to central Indiana?
The greatest opportunity for Indianapolis to prosper in the travel industry moving forward
How politics and political advocacy groups have posed a challenge for people encouraging travel to Indianapolis
Why Leonard believes AI needs to be used in marketing
Leonard discusses Visit Indy’s reason for not offering visitors a mobile app
What can Visit Indy learn from the way Singapore leverages its tourism features?
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Many large cities have convention centers and sports venues that host events that bring crowds into the region. Are events the key to getting visitors to your city? Or can a city leverage its unique features to attract people to come and enjoy the area?
With 35 years in the public relations and travel industry, Leonard Hoops knows how to attract people to his city. In addition to leveraging sporting events and conventions, there are other ways to engage a traveler's curiosity. As evidenced by his success, he has enticed visitors through his ability to recognize and prioritize Indianapolis' unique features, causing people to experience the city on their own accord. Leonard says although Indianapolis has benefitted from its major sports events and tournaments, he's working on creating attractions along the 160 miles of shoreline that the White River provides. Leonard points to Singapore, which made a billion-dollar investment to spruce up its Gardens by the Bay, which has paid off in grand fashion.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni welcomes Leonard Hoops, President and CEO of Visit Indy, for a conversation about making your city a traveler's destination. Leonard discusses what has helped Indianapolis attract visitors and how the city can take advantage of the existing attractions that appeal to visitors. He also talks about using AI for marketing purposes and whether a Visit Indy mobile app would benefit people who travel to Indianapolis.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today’s episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we create meaningful moments of brand trust and influence how people interact and engage with brands.
There is a science behind tapping into your audiences’ desires and motivation. After all, if you’re not changing your audiences’ behaviors, you can’t truly unlock all of your brand’s potential.
The proven models and methods of Behavior Design are the strategic foundation for your brands’ success.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
This is From Persona to Personal podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. Off Madison Ave creates meaningful moments of brand trust and influences how people interact and engage with brands. The science behind their approach taps into your audience's motivations and desires. After all, if you're not changing your audience's behaviors, you can't truly unlock all of your brand's potential. Now, let's get started with the show.
Roger Hurni 0:35
Hello, everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to use my expertise in consumer behavior to engage with top business leaders propelling their brands forward. Before I get to today's guest, this episode is brought to you by Off Madison Ave. At Off Madison Ave, we use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with brands. Our behavioral approach taps into your audience's motivation and prompts them to shift behavior. And if you're not shifting your audience's behaviors, you truly can't unlock all of your brand's potential. These proven behavioral models and methods are the strategic foundation for your brand success. Visit offmadisonave.com to learn more. Now without further ado, I'm super excited to have with me, Leonard Hoops he is the president and CEO of Visit Indy. Leonard leads a team of 58 industry professionals who are in charge of growing central Indiana's nearly $6 billion convention tourism and event business. Now, here's what I found interesting about lettered e the ninth generation American born in Trinidad to an East Indian mother and an English Scottish Irish father raising two kids one of them who has special needs my son and he's married to a Mexican American wife which makes everybody believe that Leonard you are your own United Nations. And and finally Leonard also is telling everyone why they should hashtag love indie. So Leonard, welcome to the show.
Leonard Hoops 2:13
Thanks for having me, Roger. All right.
Roger Hurni 2:15
Did I get anything wrong there you have a crazy mixed heritage background which is intriguing and confusing all at the same time.
Leonard Hoops 2:24
Yeah, that was spot on. I I didn't learn a lot of it. Frankly, until the the second half of my life. I was born in Trinidad. My dad was in the US Navy got out of the Navy went to Trinidad for a job based on the Navy experience men an island girl. I had been my brother and then when I was five, we moved to Texas, which is where he had grown up. But later in my life, you know, you do you do the DNA tests, the 23 beads and all the rest and I had a good inkling of what I thought it was but darn it, you know, those fitting into tubes didn't come out exactly like my parents and I was basically have got a shout out. I mean, like 50% English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, a little Welsh in there. And, and then pity present Indian, some northern Indian, southern Indian and bangtao. According to the death, I really came out exactly like they told me.
Roger Hurni 3:15
I just said you are your own United Nations. Yeah, I love that. Way. Let's start the conversation off. was telling me and listeners, what makes Indiana Indianapolis sorry, so special to visit and it's also probably a precursor as to why you took the position more than a decade ago.
Leonard Hoops 3:33
Well, I'm big sports guy. So you know, we have a sports history that goes back well over 100 years primarily because of the Indy 500 race. It's arguably the most famous race in the world. It had been going since 1911. We just had 330,000 People at the 2023 race, which for context is more than the population of Cincinnati, Ohio, be able to use Big Daddy Ohio, and we had more than their population inside of the gates being the motor speedway this past May. And from that, you know, visited India has actually been around 100 years. This is our 100th anniversary as a destination management organization. And so we were about 12 years behind the 500 start. And in that time, primarily since the 70s. The city has really had a strategy to be kind of a America's gathering place for lack of a better term. In 1972. We opened up our convention center downtown and over the last 50 years, we've connected 12 different hotels via skywalks to the convention center. The Convention Center is now connected to Lucas Oil Stadium, or the Colts play as well as Taylor Swift concert will be coming in 2024 three blocks away gainbridge bale house where the Pacers NBA team plays. So you've got a whole bunch of stuff that has built downtown very specifically, whether it's Dallas a 70,000 person gaming convention, like we had a couple of weeks ago with the Gen Con convention, whether it's for big conference sponsored sporting events. We have a two Go to Diego State Park right downtown Indianapolis golf, White River State Park. So you've got a top 10 to do, and various museums and a canal walk. And so they're just a, you know, we're a traditional capital city in a sense, you know, the capital of Indiana. But we have this sports heritage and that I think, in particular people who are, were very event driven city, I guess what I would describe it as we we started a lurch from one event to the next in whatever music or sports or convention, we generally have something for everybody.
Roger Hurni 5:30
Yeah, it sounds very much like you are have, obviously speaking spoken to a lot of CEOs in your position directors and marketing your position, the way you described Indianapolis, it feels like there was a real conscientious investment into the infrastructure to attract events of all kinds. I think other other places just seem to leverage what they have without having some sort of pre determined infrastructure set up, did any and do that on purpose, like the skywalks and everything? Or is it for something else?
Leonard Hoops 6:08
And I really did. I mean, again, beginning about 50 years ago, the city leader did some of the state leaders essentially said, you know, we're in the Midwest, obviously. And so we're gonna get the four seasons, and so you're gonna have a winter. And I think, as early as the 70s, the city leaders knew that there was always the risk of being overly dependent on manufacturing, which a lot of Midwest so called rust belt cities have gone through in the last 50 years. And they felt early on that we needed another leg to stand on. And that was going to be tourism, conventions and sports. And so we kind of weatherproofed by having me connected skywalks so that you can do things 12 months a year, we're one of the few cities. In fact, we're the only city cold weather city that has hosted both the Super Bowl and a college football playoff national championship, the red Super Bowl 2012, the CFP between Alabama and Georgia in 2022. And when you get you know, when you get up into the winter month of January for a CFP and February for a Super Bowl, that it's unusual to be able to have it so it's kind of the game, we have some other things we don't we don't have the typical, you know, 365 day your driver is like a Disneyland or you know, Southern or coastal cities that might have beaches or other attractions like that. I always remind people though, that you know, one of the great cities of the world arguably maybe the biggest brand in the world is a flat city with a river and that's Paris. And you know, Paris and you have 2000 year headstart on us work last year you wouldn't know mountain snow ocean did cetera. But a lot can be done in 2000 year, that's amazing. You're in 100 years or 15 years, they use examples of Vegas and Orlando all the time. Orlando was a swamp 100 years ago, you know, a swamp and Orange Grove. Vegas was just pure desert with population 3400 1923. I I had to look it up. And you know, so to me, the way you could do it a short amount of time if you really put your mind to it is at the community.
Roger Hurni 8:10
Well, Jitan I really enjoy the parallel with with with bear. So you have this amazing infrastructure to leverage. I'm curious, what's been some of your more effective strategies when it comes then to encouraging visitors in businesses to Indianapolis in Central Indiana, honestly, as a whole?
Leonard Hoops 8:31
Yeah, again, I think it really just comes down to the fact that we are strategically designed to post big things that were very event driven. So again, unlike having say a theme park where that's going to be your driver, we have different events, right? Pretty much every single week we have a database conference in town right now, last week, we had Popcaan kind of a Comic Con cosplaying all these things get and the 1000s of folks who were do that, a month ago, we add something called Gen Con, which is the biggest hobby gaming event in the world. So people who play Dungeons and Dragons and and you know, Settlers of Catan and those sorts of things and they come from 50 plus countries around the world you know we before that you know you're gonna have we had a Delta Sigma Sorority or delta date I'm sorry dot delta time escapes me all with the Delta, but they're one of the Divine nine historically black sororities but they had 30,000 people and and and so it just depends on on you know, kind of what your thing is. You're probably coming to India at some point. It's something auto racing a sorority convention whatever.
Roger Hurni 9:43
So it sounds like to me that it maybe you are unique amongst your contemporaries that instead of doing marketing saying here's all the great things about you know, visit indeed almost feel like you're marketing the events and the events market. Visit into Is that? Is that fair?
Leonard Hoops 10:01
Yeah, that's a lot of that is true. And in fact, we've also been thinking about how do we divest ourselves of, of some events would be more year round. We do have some year round. Rob, we have the world's largest children's museum in Indianapolis, which is a bold day, sometimes a multi day experience. Excuse, you know, younger kids that are typically three teenage years, that sort of thing. We have a great art museum with 100 acre campus 100 plus acre campus, in, in town. Again, I mentioned all the attraction to the White River State Park, like the zoo, and, and the museums of the year. But so we have some things that are, you know, people will come at any time, you know, year round, and we have a growing culinary team. But we really have kind of hung our hat on this idea of having better infrastructure and as a result, where a prime place whether you're a big convention, or a major sporting event that wants to be held and, and, you know, therefore, I don't remember a couple years ago, in in the pandemic, in 2001, the entire NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was played in Indy, we ought to get Final Fours. But that was a once in a lifetime kind of thing, because of the circumstances to host every game every round out from opening hip hop to the to the final championship game in one city, and you probably never will see that again. You had an extraordinary circumstance.
Roger Hurni 11:26
Okay, well, given your acumen in travel industry, and maybe this is a two part question. The first part will be about Indianapolis and second part maybe the travel industry as a whole. I'm kind of curious what you think the biggest opportunity for the industry in front Indianapolis is right now. Given you've done so well?
Leonard Hoops 11:47
Well, I think that the destination management organizations have definitely leaned into these ideas of tourism master plan, or in our case, we call it a destination vision. And so it's, you know, what are the DMO is like visiting the doing to more shape our future product. And in our case, we're trying to we're trying to say, hey, let's continue to be great at events. But let's build some things. Let's figure out what it is when I typically describe this as a Venn diagram between if one circle as well, resident one and one circle is what visitors want. When those overlap, that's our destination gauge, right? If it's something only the residents want, and it's not a destination vision, from the perspective of drawing visitors, if it's something only visited one, the residents don't want it, then that's not going to work either, because you're not going to get the buy in from your community. And so I think finding that overlap between what the residents and visitors want and then figuring out through public and private partnerships or public private market, how to get those things done, for example, we are right now working on Wye river vision. And there's 58 miles of this river like the river sand in Paris. Well, I've got a quick example. Right, so you've got a flat city with a river. You've got Indianapolis, and then you've got a county to the north of us Hamilton County, and we're collaborating our two counties on figuring out how to read a 50 minute miles of, of attractions that are a mix of manmade and natural along that river. We've got this jewel in White River State Park downtown, that's along the river. But there's multiple other places on there. I'm on the board of an organization called Connick prairie, it's a Smithsonian affiliated Museum. They're way up on the north side in that other county, but they've got a river right there, and what are they going to do with it? And our kind of vision for that is the equivalent of a vertical, natural, a national park where you know, rather than a big Grand Canyon, you've got kind of this, you know, this river that goes 58 miles, it's 160 miles of shoreline, what can we do that would make somebody want to visit your destination, and I look at a place like Singapore, which, in 2007, started working on the big old guard by the bay, it opened up in 2012, they spent a billion dollar US on that project, but that ended up leading to, as I understand it, more than $5 billion in private investment from database and, and from Universal Singapore and something like that, you know, sometimes, if you if you you can do these catalysts project and they really lead to, you know, to grow up. And so we want to create product as other destination to deal with to these destination visions or tourism master plans. And I think that's the opportunity. The animals in general have today that maybe they didn't have 20 years ago.
Roger Hurni 14:33
Is there. Is there a threat to the industry that you see that people should look out for in the business?
Leonard Hoops 14:39
Yeah, I mean, there's the internal and external threats. I think the biggest I don't know if it's a threat or Excel, I guess, maybe gifted a challenge. But you know, I think that a lot of what we do have become very politicized over the years, right. So now the state legislatures weigh in on LGBTQ topics and a boy version and other things like that, particularly when you're event driven, like, indeed, there are a lot of groups that say, Hey, I'm not going to go to the city that, you know, or a city in a state that has laws that we feel are discriminatory or that has laws that we feel, don't allow empower women, ever the gays by the bathroom bill, the North Carolina and, and don't say gay, you know, so called laws in Florida. And you know, there's a lot of states that have been sick could be interpreted that way by solving. So I think I think the the politics are way different than 30 years ago when I got into this industry. And my first job in the mid 90s, in San Jose, California. And there was, there was especially a lot of blue cities in red states that are kind of facing these things. And I think there's just a general threat. And if you have to walk a fine line between, like, in our case, I've got a super majority of Republican state house, three blocks one direction and the super majority Democrat to data counsel for firebox the other direction, and they don't always agree on things. So you got to figure out what we're, you know, we're kind of the the problem,
Roger Hurni 16:11
I'm going to input my own two cents into this. I agree with you, I think the politics can make things a little tricky what I've not been able to figure out, because it seems to be a universal truth among every state legislature. They look at tourism as an expenditure as opposed to an investment. And I can't say I can't speak for every city, every office of tourism. But by far and large, most of them can demonstrate a very specific ROI, that in the context of business would be a blowout number by anybody's measure. And the States will continue to lead the levels of tourism budgets the same or they'll cut them to say, Oh, I'm cutting budgets. When I'm like, Look, if I'm giving you two, if I'm getting $200, for every dollar I spend my business strategy is go to the bank and borrow more money, increase the budget. And I think that I'm not necessarily looking for our spot, I guess. I'm on my soapbox about state legislators, I love them. But at the same time, I just I wish they would have a better attitude toward tourism.
Leonard Hoops 17:17
While an individual basis, I'd be hard pressed to tell you folks over there I don't like or I mean, I There are smart people that successful in their individual businesses, or whatever it is they might be doing. But sometimes, you know, they get influenced by, by advocacy groups, and that lead to things and they call it challenges in your state. And they're thinking, you know, that you're not as an important voice or constituent as maybe somebody else does, in terms of getting certain legislation passed, I will say one of the few silver linings of the pandemic was that it did make a lot of elected officials realize the impact of tourism, convention, Sports, Tourism, all these sorts of things, when all of a sudden restaurants, you know, weren't getting those folks. Even when we were coming out of the pandemic, and there were some vaccines and all that, but a lot of the group travel and that sort of stuff, particularly urban vacation level, leisure travel, hadn't come back, you know, the rural was coming back, right? People were camping, and they're going out and doing outdoor things, and it was considered safer and yadda yadda. But bourbon was slower to come back group was slower to come back. There was a lot of folks who came to me during that time period there wow, I can I feel the difference when Gen Con, or the fire department instructors or the big 10 football game, or whatever is in town. And really what you guys do makes a difference. And I I feel like in a lot of ways, the last year and a half, two years, we've gotten a ton of folks who have become bigger supporters of us than they were. Yeah,
Roger Hurni 18:45
Drew. I'd like to get your take on some trends I'm seeing in the industry. Hopefully, these might not be your area of expertise. But I'd definitely like to get your take on and the first one is going to be aI because it's having this profound effect. We mean people are doing travel itineraries through AI. I spoke with the DMO yesterday who's doing their own brand stories with a what's visit Indy doing are you engaging with this technology? Are you you know, using it already?
Leonard Hoops 19:16
Well, you know, I mean, there was already in some ways even before it chatted GPT became famous have been some AI that's been you know, would be some of these bots on websites, and then we've we've worked with Savile over the years, you know where you're gonna you're not necessarily talking to a live person you're talking to somebody or some entity via your website that's helping answer your question, but not always, you know, library. It's been around I think longer I mean, Siri, Siri and Alexa are Yeah, right. So people it's been around longer than people think. I think it's becoming much more in our you know, it's showing up more in conversations. Now people are digging a little bit deeper. I you know, I'm the the Incoming Chair of PCMA and PCMA has something called Project Spark which is An AI driven engine, and people are using it for things like starting to plan conferences, you know, agenda, or you lay out a rule, you know, very, very granular terms of things that you know that you can do so so without question, this thing stemmed out like a freight train, we had visited Indy are looking at it kind of in multiple levels, whether it's whether it's worth it because it was such a big adventure destination, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in 2014, USA Today, did a report and survey that named Indianapolis the number one convention city in America, and they've never updated that survey since 2014. So we remain number one, and I hope to never do because we could no go nowhere but down. But, you know, when you're when you're event driven, like we are things like that, we see implications for that, we see implications for how we build itineraries, how people build itineraries, and they're looking at, indeed, how they how they engage our website. And there's a lot of different tools and resources that are already out there. But I think a lot of them are still in their infancy. And relatively speaking in terms of being usable for how a DML by might deploy them. But I think sooner or later, there's going to be some kind of clear winners of, of, you know, ways to engage in AI utilize AI resources, for different audiences have the meeting planner, again, is going to use it differently than mom and dad. It's really Chicago driving Napa weekend.
Roger Hurni 21:34
So I'm getting the take that from, from the perspective of Friend or Foe you side, I'm afraid the side that AI is gonna be something we're gonna have to use and integrate.
Leonard Hoops 21:44
I think if you have to reality, you know, I mean, it's like 30 years ago, I remember building, not me personally, but being the guy in charge of helping get a website built in San Jose, in the late 90s. And it was one of the first couple years I was at San Jose. So Silicon Valley, right, build one of the first destination websites. And the initial team, I was part of the content, you know, Hey, what should this look like, et cetera, et cetera. And eventually, my team manage that side. But that was such a weird thing back then. Right, you know, to, like, people didn't have websites. They didn't have a website. And now, it's amazing in 30 years, how, how now we're talking about AI. As you know, it just it's an inevitability of, of how this industry works.
Roger Hurni 22:36
So AI, it's going to lead me into the other trend that I'm seeing a lot. Many, many destinations in yourself included. There's a reliance on mobile apps. I mean, the travelers today, they plan on mobile apps, they'll constantly use mobile apps during in planning travel. And then they actually use all the mobile apps post travel so that they can share things and how, how important is your mobile app to you? And I even know some companies starting to integrate AI into into that experience as well. So is that is that important to visit Indian, or you're looking at taking it to the other levels?
Leonard Hoops 23:16
Why, you know, we have an indie app at some point. And it's been a long time, we don't have one now, what we what we focused on and then I think a lot of other DMO did this, too, was making sure that your site, you know, it fits the platform that it's on whether you're on an iPad, whether you're on a bone, whether your desktop, that it, that it is very functional, in each one of those settings. And so we we focused our efforts eventually on just being you know, we're by my follow up visit indeed.com on my phone right now, it loads a little differently, right than if I'm pulling it up on my computer, at home at night. And, and but but it's just to maximize functionality and ease of use. And we you know, we've we've tracked the data. And it's amazing how over the years, the percentage has dropped so drastically from desktop planning to phone planning, and or you're in the destination already. And you're just trying to get content on your phone in that moment. You know, the ratio of it's much more it's way more mobile now than the desktop.
Roger Hurni 24:18
Now? Yeah, it is. And I was mistaken. I guess I did not see an app in there. But clearly, I mean, it's one of those things that that people have to address and mobile websites, maybe the way you're addressing it, but it's definitely every, every time I speak to anybody from travel, I was like, Yeah, our app drives so much engagement with the brand and it becomes this one to one communications tool.
Leonard Hoops 24:43
And when we had what we ended up finding out from probably consumers or visitors that didn't want to load they didn't want to have to download another app. The Indiana St. Louis app and Louisville app and Chicago app they you know, they might have had a Travelocity Lab App and they might have had a you know a Some hotels.com app or something like that, that are more applicable to any destination, but the destination was the big one. What we found was they wanted to be able to our website, and it didn't load in some weird way on their phone relative to their
Roger Hurni 25:14
I want to just the last trend in that I'm I'm seeing amongst everybody in the travel and tourism space. Is this idea of personalization, a personalized experience. The pandemic certainly changed a lot of our behaviors, they became different sort of habits, making it unique to the individual as much as possible. Is, is that something visit indies able to address and if so, how?
Leonard Hoops 25:41
Yeah, the word of the day these days is bespoke, isn't it, it used to only apply to like getting accustomed to an hour everybody wants to talk about, you know, this bespoke experience now. And, you know, I feel like for some time now, we have had resources and tools, again, primarily via a website, where, however you were interacting with it, that allowed you to personalize a trip, one of the things I've personally been involved in and you shared, it sounds like it'd be you, you also have a special needs child. So my 18 year old cerebral palsy, and is not is not ambulatory, so get around in a power chair. He doesn't articulate speech, except for a few things. And you can really understand what he's smart. He comprehends like a typical 18 year old, he just doesn't communicate back or, or get around like a big deal, typical 18 year old. And so I found, for example, that years ago, it must have been 2013 ish, I was looking for something about where he could get the canal walk in downtown Indy along along the, in the White River State Park, I couldn't figure out which elevator area where the elevators were, so that he could get down there. You know, and in power here, I was like, holy cow, I can't even find this on my own website. And that led to, you know, a project that lasted a year and is continuously continually trying to improve it. This one a bunch of awards since or in putting accessibility information on your website, working with everything rather than the individual attractions and restaurants and hotels being how are we accessible? Where do you go? What do we do with some cases of sensory issues and other things like that? Are people traveling with family members or friends who were on the spectrum? But the other case, it was like, having somebody who's in a wheelchair build you an itinerary, tell you here's my perfect day, in a wheelchair in Indy, or here's, here's, you know, here's what I like to do with somebody who's got a sensory need, or someone who's blind or, you know, hearing imperatives of the blind, double blind. And so we've tried to get a, if you go to the web, our website, you, you certainly can custom figure out ways to build custom itineraries, we have recommendations, lots of times people want to get, you know, why you to give them the recommendation, and then they'll tweak that right. Everybody likes to work out the straw man, sometimes more than they do building something from scratch that can which work
Roger Hurni 28:11
well, the thing about what you said from a consumer behavior standpoint, everybody has a different set of motivations, and the different set of abilities be able to perform those sorts of behaviors and if you're not thinking through all those situations, then you're really not going to be able to engage everybody on a on a personal level and sounds like visit Indy is doing a lot of that which
Leonard Hoops 28:33
is fantastic. Yeah, it was a thrill to me, I saw some I can't remember the article but it was delta sigma beta by the way that was earlier in the podcast there was a Dow recently the there was an article in one of the travel magazines that it was somebody who travels with somebody in a wheelchair who said out well that was to go to the visit nd website ClD all this information and I you know that like a lot of things and the being you know, the labor of love for my own kid that they wind up making indies website a little bit different and then the see somebody else who used it and wrote up about it. It made me
Roger Hurni 29:13
very happy. It does make it very special. There's places in the world where that's just non existent. I'm, I'm gonna speak a personal story. I was on the climbing safety team for the first unassisted Ascent by paraplegic up Kilimanjaro in 2006. And when my buddy Darrell, we went to go see this small village oshi when we brought out as he's in his wheelchair, everyone came around him because they just they've never seen anybody in the wheelchair because sadly in that part of the world, people with his issues is being paraplegic. They just they die, and people just don't understand how to look through that lens of people with needs and make sure that there's accommodations everywhere and I on a personal note, I love the fact that you've been able to do that for visiting a
Leonard Hoops 30:01
while, you know, and places that are as progressive as Europe, in Japan, it's amazing how when it comes to that specific issue, how limited they are, and how did they, you know, be they've got all breeds they've never modified them or, or felt the need that they add to?
Roger Hurni 30:14
Yeah, very much. So I'm kind of curious as to what's the what's keeping you up at night right now, what's the greatest challenges that you're facing in your job?
Leonard Hoops 30:25
We've already covered some of them, right? The the politics that have seemed to take over a lot of what we do in this industry and berbeda, you know, I tend to focus instead on on this product development thing, and it's a good keeping me up at night. It's like, how do we, how do we create something that that makes India must be the destination, not just event by event, but somebody has to come see us and, and so for example, we're right now putting together a study mission to Singapore, going back to this garden by the bay example of how they they build something in five years didn't all of a sudden became like, elaborate the number one attraction in South Asia and in a matter practically no time? And, you know, they if it's, that's keeping me up at night, but not in a worried way, keeping me up at night enough in so many ideas, and how do we how do we get? How do we get the right folks together at the State House at the mayor's office, the private development fund, and the philanthropic sector to to you know, what's the right idea we all collectively agree is the right idea or idea? How do we find it, though? I prefer things that keep me up at night that are exciting, rather than the ones that are worrisome.
Roger Hurni 31:41
Okay, fair enough. By the way, I have been to Singapore and I have been to that location and it's it is pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I went in 2017 before things started to get a little crazy, but some
Leonard Hoops 31:53
people are like, you know, they that didn't exist. They started building in oh seven it opened in like 12 and, and what it is today and what they've done with their airport, either I mean the airport is in and of itself. Wow. What 110 or waterfall and in just some incredible things. They've really completely leaned in and to being this garden city. And, and and they've had both private and public investment. created real product real tactile, tangible web experience.
Roger Hurni 32:24
Beautiful place. I've only got a couple more questions. He's been really great with your time the first one is, is there something I should have asked you that I didn't?
Leonard Hoops 32:35
Well, you didn't ask me my dog's name. My dog's name is I have this you know, I'm the I'm the classic dad who did not want a dog my my now 11 year old daughter by the age of eight started lobbying for this dog and put together like a PowerPoint and you know, showed me put out by the it because we live in a condo in downtown Indianapolis on Mass Ave. And like I you know, I don't want to I read this today. I didn't want to pat I traveled to lunch, we were all you know. And now of course, the dog is my best friend. Oh, you know, it's just, it's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He's about 12 pounds. Her name is olive. And I would not, I don't know what I did without in order to keep keeps me grounded.
Roger Hurni 33:20
I'm paying a seamless situation to I had to actually do things on my life. And then I got to a point where we didn't NAPLAN for a number of years, because my daughter was extremely allergic. And she's like, I'm gonna go on allergy shots. And like three years later, she's like, I think I'm ready to have a dog. And so now like, I'm the dog's best friend and dogs, my best friend. So
Leonard Hoops 33:39
it's amazing how they somehow seek out that person that didn't want to do it, and it became their human. Hmm. All right. Well,
Roger Hurni 33:47
my wrap up question for you is because you gave me given the audience, in myself some very interesting takes on the industry and everything that you're doing the indie. I always think that there's great advice inside of bad advice. So my question is, what's the worst advice you've ever gotten that you said no to?
Leonard Hoops 34:08
The worst advice I've ever gotten? Wow, that is a good question. I get that a lot. Yeah. I will say, and maybe this isn't directly answering that question. But I think it's, it's a good story that's along these lines, and that any when I was 34 years old, I had recently been promoted to the Senior VP in San Jose, and I've been the director of PR and then the VP of Marketing and BVB. And at that time, I would become interim in charge of sales even though marketing was my background. And I had my first meeting ever with where I was in charge of the general managers and directors of sales and marketing this one of these quarterly meetings where all the big hoteliers get together etc, etc. And so one of the the GM of the biggest hotel in pound basically said to the group at the me, hey, you know, you need to start bucking this terrible business that you guys have been booked and proud you've been bugging us in so many small trade shows and conventions. And what we really want is corporate groups that meet all weekend, we want corporate groups that peak on like, Friday, Saturday, Sunday night bring us though. And if you've been in the convention side of the world, or you know, any amount of time you realize, you know that that doesn't exist, corporate groups don't peak on weekends. So my response to this general manager in front of all of his peers, was to say, well, I'm going to, I'd say name, you'd want to say last name, I said, well bred, when we're done hunting for unicorns, what else would you like us to look. And I thought that was pretty funny. But that was definitely a 34 year old without the proper filters. Without understanding the context of that I just basically embarrassed this guy in front of his bear that he's the biggest hotelier in town. You know, and nobody ever gave me advice to not do that. But I should have known better. And I'm lucky, I didn't get fired. Frankly, my boss ended up saying, you know, you got some damage control to do with with this guy, and yada yada. And so I will say that I learned a very valuable lesson that day. And I'm, and I'm still probably a little bit more likely than most, to be overly Frank in certain conversation. But I no longer if I'm going to be frank in the conversation, be one on one and nobody else is there. And I'll let you know. But I'm not going to try to embarrass somebody in front of their peers. And so I guess that's, that's the one thing that popped into my head right off the bat was, that was that was a learning moment for me. Somebody should have given me that advice. Yes. And but but I ended up having to give myself that advice afterward. And I learned a lesson that day,
Roger Hurni 36:54
we're doing our cut from the same cloth, when it comes to being frank with people generally knows exactly where they stand with me. I appreciate the time today, it was a great conversation. Everyone, I had been speaking with Leonard Hoops, who's got the best last name for being from a Sports City? The President and CEO of Visit Indy, where can people learn more about you and Visit Indy?
Leonard Hoops 37:17
While they go to visitindy.com, www.visitindy.com. Wait, they can also look up the end destination vision. If they just type that into Google, they'll find it but it's one long URL at indydestinationvision.com. And that will show you the various things we're up to in terms of master planning for our city. But visitindy.com is certainly the probably the last it's showing my age. And then a second ago, I threw in three W I think you're right. But But that's certainly the robust website. I particularly would love to hear anybody who's gone to the site, who's got somebody who was looking for accessible information and the feedback they'd give it about what they found in exploring our website.
Roger Hurni 38:02
Fantastic. And don't worry about the three W's because our generation invented the internet and the World Wide
Leonard Hoops 38:08
Web. Exactly. Let's get right to good mineral pleasure. Thank you for having
Roger Hurni 38:12
Generation l inventor, liberty, but um, no, he was great. And thank you for again for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Everyone. I'm Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal we'll catch you next time. Thank you.
Outro 38:28
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal. The podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
