Leveraging What is Unique About Your Destination With Stan Adams, Executive Director of Sports at Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports
Stan Adams is the Executive Director of Sports at Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports (TTS), where he strategizes ways to attract and host high-profile, revenue-generating sports events for the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He started his career in the sports tourism industry as an intern for TTS in 2015, then served as a sports marketing representative in Maryland before returning to TTS in 2019 as Director of Sports. Stan began his current role in late 2021.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Stan Adams shares the types of visitors Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports (TTS) tries to attract
What is TTS doing to get non-football fans to visit and enjoy Tuscaloosa?
How micro-influencers are utilized as part of the organization's social strategy
Stan reveals a hidden gem that Tuscaloosa offers to potential visitors
Why TTS has yet to launch a mobile app
An obstacle Stan has to overcome when bringing sports events to Tuscaloosa
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Many places have one key thing they’re known for, and it attracts visitors. However, a lot of people may not be interested in that one thing. So how can you entice more tourists to experience the lesser-known aspects of your area?
When you think of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, you may think of it as the place where the iconic University of Alabama football team plays. Of course, if you’re not a football fan, you wouldn’t give it a second thought. An experienced tourism strategist, Stan Adams says the town offers lakes, the Black Warrior River, and the Tuscaloosa Civil Rights Trail, among others, which would appeal to people whose interests extend beyond football. Stan explains how his organization’s marketing team emphasizes everything that makes Tuscaloosa unique to attract as many visitors as possible.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni sits down with Stan Adams, Executive Director of Sports at Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports, to discuss effective ways to promote and market an area that may only be known to a group of people with specific interests. Stan shares what makes Tuscaloosa unique, beyond great college football, and how those things can be promoted. He and Roger also discuss the benefits of using a mobile app and AI to attract and assist visitors.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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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.
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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 0:33
Hello everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to use my expertise and consumer behavior modification 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. Off Madison Ave, we use behavioral science to create meaningful moments of brand trust, which influences how people interact and engage with companies. Our behavioral approach taps into your audience's motivation and prompts them to shift behavior. If you're not changing 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 am really happy to have Stan Adams with me today. Stan began his career in the sports tourism industry as an intern for Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports when they refer to it shorthand as TTS in 2015. Upon graduating from the University of Alabama with a master's in sports management, he joined the I'm gonna probably butcher this week Mocha, mocha, mocha County, Maryland team as a sports marketing representative in 2016. And 2017, he returned to TTS as a sports sales manager. And in 2021, congratulations to stand he was promoted to the Executive Director of Sports. Stan, welcome to the show.
Stan Adams 2:04
I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's Wicomico. Well, Wicomico. Yes, correct. Yeah.
Roger Hurni 2:09
I put you to while I was saying it, but then I'm like, I think I gotta get it. Right. So
Stan Adams 2:13
you said a lot better than a lot of the people do. So you're close enough.
Roger Hurni 2:16
Anything to correct in there, they get things wrong are? on it? Yeah. All right. Well, that's, that's what it's wonderful to have you on the show. I really appreciate your time today. Why don't we jump right into the questions. And let's start by giving listeners some background on visit Tuscaloosa. Sorry, I'm gonna say that again, visit Tuscaloosa. I said that correctly? You can correct me. But basically, when you it's, it's it's a small area, and I'm trying to figure like, what does it really have to offer visitors?
Stan Adams 2:50
Ya know? So for us, I mean, obviously, Tuscaloosa, and its name and itself is very unique. I think one of our over the years or iterations of our company we've tried to do to tag lines or whatever. And when we did when I was an intern was called The One and Only Tuscaloosa there's no other Tuscaloosa in the entire world actually comes from the Chief here in Tuscaloosa himself. That's where it kind of got its name from. So it's unique in that aspect. You know, kind of we're kind of people really understand where Tuscaloosa is, is the University of Alabama. That's kind of the main draw to people here. But kind of what we're our job is is to kind of really bring people in outside of the university. Because as opposed to a lot of other different, you know, college towns, you know, for example, Auburn, I'll use them as an example always compared to them. Auburn would not be a city without the University of Auburn without Auburn University. That's very different from Tuscaloosa. We have about 100,000 people, this doesn't include, doesn't include students. So 100,000 people in the city and 200,000 people in our county. So there's industry here we have Mercedes Benz, they're the largest actually their first national, their first plant was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And it's actually the largest in the entire country. So there's industry here, tons of stuff like that. But really our job is to really try to market people. And you know, for us, we're known for football, that's kind of what we're known for as a community. But that's only seven months out of the year. So our job really here if it's Tuscaloosa is trying to attract people, whether that be through meetings, conferences, conventions, and especially for my side of stuff sports. So bringing in, I don't care what it is, I've done stuff is Quidditch have done. We do high school football championships. I don't care what it is, if it's a sport, and you're going to bring people here to stay in my hotels, I'll go after it.
Roger Hurni 4:31
So if, you're the first destination marketing organization that has combined the tourism and sports that I've come across, maybe there's others out there but because of football, is that why Visit Tuscaloosa does combine those things because it's so well known for the University of Alabama sports program.
Stan Adams 4:51
Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of, you know, lean into you know, we've gone through different iterations of, you know, our logging I talked about earlier TTS, testicle tourism sports, we just recently rebranded to Visit Tuscaloosa, which is kind of really a lot of what the industry does anyways, and it's a lot easier to say to be completely honest. So but yeah, I mean, I think that's what it is us what you're known for, and we used to be our colors to be blue. We used to be completely anti the university because the university I went to university Alabama got my undergrad marketing there, sports management degree, Masters from there, season ticket holder, I love it, but they don't really care to partner with a lot of people. So our old kind of leadership was kind of like okay, well don't even lean into it. Let's go the opposite way from it. But I think, you know, it kind of makes more sense look, you know, use that as, the as the hook to get people in. And then it's our job to let them know of all the other great stuff we have here as a community to offer, whether it be arts, entertainment, music, or whatever. But yeah, I think that's kind of what the first iteration was, was okay, because we originally were separate it was tourism. And then it was a Sports Commission, I think in about 2000. And I think it might have been 2006 is when they combined both of them under one roof from a funding model purpose. And that's really what it was. But they go hand in hand for sure.
Roger Hurni 6:03
Right. So you mentioned because of the tie to sports and the university, your core audience seems to be the university atmosphere. So I’m trying of figure out? Who beyond that, are your core visitors and your wishlist visitors? I mean, who do you want to bring into Tuscaloosa?
Stan Adams 6:23
Yeah, definitely, I think, you know, I think football markets itself, we don't have to do too much for that. I think that's a, that's a national brand. I think he told, Nick Saban went over to Italy, and everyone was telling him “Roll Tide”. So we're actually like a global brand at this point. But yeah, those people already coming here. So we're those people were here. And I would honestly say goes back to we're talking about people could come here for a game day, but it's so congested, we become the third largest city in the state of Alabama on a game day, that stadium holds 103,000 people and that doesn't include everyone else that has even go to the game. So that's kind of what we're trying to do is try to give you a different view of Tuscaloosa when it's not football because it's so congested, you can't get around here. And really, but really what we're trying to attract now, especially from, from, a from a sport side of things on my side, youth, youth sports is kind of you know, for us from an economic impact standpoint, I'm sure you've heard this talk about their DMOS, heads and beds, people call it different things, especially from my aspect of things youth, because the younger the kids are, the more people they're going to bring with them to stay in their hotels, you know, the older you get, the less brother and sister you get the less mom and dad, less grandma and grandpa. So that's kind of what we try to attract on the sports side. From the tourism side. It's really, it's really kind of anybody, any race, any age range. You know, we've got telescopes amphitheater, which is a huge attraction here. Coach Saban is investing in something called the Saban Center, which is going to be the biggest science interactive museum in the state of Alabama, so we're really all over the place. But really, we're just trying to show people, you know, we're not just football think that's what we constantly try to, you know, toe that fine line of okay, yes, we are Alabama football, but we have so much more here to offer.
Roger Hurni 7:56
So along those lines, you said, and I believe you that the football program is known, definitely known nationally. I mean, hands down that's even that's not even an argument. But he also said it's known globally, and others take that at face value. If you're expanding beyond the football program, because Tuscaloosa has so much to offer. I mean, when people think of Alabama, I don't believe unless they know football. Yeah, they don't they don't probably know Tuscaloosa that probably doesn't really come to mind. Yeah. So switching to marketing initiatives, what are you doing to get people to visit and enjoy Tuscaloosa that, that may not know about the football program?
Stan Adams 8:34
Definitely, and that's actually a great segue for so we have our new CEO, she's been with us for about a little over a year, she has a marketing background and you know, kind of makes sense of we're a DMO destination marketing organization, you think you'd probably put more into marketing. And that was kind of, we kind of switched to that which is definitely needed and how you're going to create a narrative or create a story when no one knows about you? So I think that's a perfect segue we're just talking about and that's kind of a lot of our initiatives, all almost all, all of our new money coming in from funding is really going towards marketing, we have a, we're about to have a two-person, a three-person marketing team before it was always one person. So we've got a full-time social media person, and they've kind of really and that's really kind of our first kind of step has really been has been social media. Our social media has been kind of stale over the years, it was kind of hit or miss. It wasn't consistent, if you know anything about social media, you need to be consistent. That's one thing you got to have, that you're active. So we've kind of gone to a younger audience before we are our brand was more so okay, let's tell people about the events that we're bringing in. But kind of what we've taken now is as well as the best piece of, of marketing that you get is word of mouth, people that live here, and they can talk about it as well. So what we've tried to do is highlight everything that is here for the local people. And then when you come into our market, whether it be through geofencing, or whatever would that be to Tiktock, Facebook, whatever you want to, social media you want to use, you'll get some of our stuff that's highlighting our new restaurants, you know, musical attractions, that are coming into town, you know, we've got Jason Aldean coming in this weekend, you know, big acts that we have musically. You know, our bars, our breweries, art scenes, pretty, pretty well, you know, pretty good, you know, doing really well now, where there are outdoors activities, we've got the Black Warrior River, just kind of showing that stuff from a local standpoint so when you come in, and you want to go and talk to the local bartenders, I'm like, hey, what does it have to do in town? And what we're facing a lot of times up until probably past couple of years was people aren't in community didn't even know it was going on. So how can you try to market to people outside when people in your own community don't even really know so that's what we're our first attack is right now is letting people know in our community, what is always happening, what's new, what's happening here? So even when we get somebody that may, they have not been planned or we didn't target them marketing wise word of mouth, they're going to hear it. And then I think we can we all know that you go somewhere and you talk to local people, and they're, they're enthusiastic, they're loving, where they're from, that kind of is infectious and kind of makes you want to, you know, kind of figure out why they are that way.
Roger Hurni 10:47
So it sounds like the outbound from a social perspective are the typical things that people would want to highlight in their area, right, the events that are going on, the restaurant, places to go places to see that sort of thing. Micro-influencers have gotten to be a really big deal. And you talked about you mentioned that, like the local experts, you know people will end up going to a bartender and saying, hey, where else can I do “XYZ?” Yeah. Have you incorporated any of that into your social strategy? Where you use some of those real micro-influencers? Or do some social listening, where you're pulling in other people's content about great things to do in Tuscaloosa?
Stan Adams 11:21
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think we always have this Google Alerts to see who's talking about us. I mean, we're a southern city. So we get a lot of people whether it be because of college towns, I don't care if it's Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Sports Center, or just from like Southern Living or something like that. People are always making lists. I mean, you can see it everywhere. Top 10 Southern cities for a beer, you know, stuff like that. When we get those we definitely put those on all of our socials. But yeah, we've actually definitely actually about a couple months ago, I think your her name was something Molly Magnolia. I have to go talk to our marketing team. But she's an influencer. And she has about I think it was like 700,000 followers. So like that, and we took her for three days, a whole production team took her to everywhere in the community, everyone in the town when it came to our best restaurants, took her out on our lakes, our trails, to really kind of have her incorporate her followers and stuff like that and, and really capitalize on that. And that's her thing, she's, there's a lot of these tourism influencers now. And so that's what we're trying to try to market as well as breaking new markets, you may have not heard of us, may not have thought about us, because you think only football in Tuscaloosa. And those are different channels that we're trying to really do. And that's kind of been in the past year and a half. So exactly those influencers are going to be a real key for us moving forward.
Roger Hurni 12:26
That's very smart, little humblebrag. In my own part, we might company 10 years ago, 10, 11 years ago, did the first national influencer campaign for revisitation. Yeah, it was a combination with Conde Nast,
Stan Adams 12:40
Before anyone knew what was going on. Yeah, before it was actually called influencer.
Roger Hurni 12:42
Yeah. But they are really important. I'm glad to see that that you're you're doing that. People like that pop up all the time. I mean, they're, they're your best evangelists because they just they love the place. And they, they know what to do. You mentioned in that answer, also, the ton of stuff that's going on, you mentioned even that there's a lot of traffic in Tuscaloosa, which I don't think anyone would really think of. So if you can just like snap your fingers. What would you like visitors coming to Tuscaloosa to do that they're not currently doing like, what's the hidden gem that you that people don't realize?
Stan Adams 13:19
Yeah, I mean, definitely, I think our outdoors. You can't really see it behind me my windows closed, but we have the Black Warrior River, which goes from here all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. very underutilized. That's something that I think the city and all of us together trying to, you know, develop more. We've got a Riverwalk that goes about four miles it’s going to expand that and think to about ten here in the six months. So you can you know, really active just trying to get people out here. We only have a couple restaurants right here too. But you can paddleboard out there, you can take your boat fishing out there. I mean, there's barges that come through there. I think our next step is really to kind of add a pedestrian bridge to get over to the city across the river, which is not that far called Northport. Definitely so are outdoors, we've got about five bodies of water, including that, you know, lakes, we've got Lake Tuscaloosa, Lake Harris, Lake Nicol, just kind of get outdoors. I mean, I think that was something we saw from COVID was people really trying to really connect with the outdoor aspect. And I think that's something we kind of really were like, wow, we've done a poor job of marketing that ourselves. So definitely our outdoor activities, but also for us. I mean, you know, in the south, you know, with the we have a, we've incubated for about two or three years, the Tuscaloosa Civil Rights Trail, I think that's really something unique and you know, to our, to our area, obviously, its history, but what you need to, you need to talk about, if you don't talk about it, no one else is gonna learn about it. And we don't like to shy away from that we like to, you know, you know, let everybody know. And part of our Tuscaloosa Civil Rights Trail, we have people that were part of bloody Tuesday in the history that will tell you about what they were doing on that historic day, you know, schoolhouse door, all that stuff. We have people in this community there that are telling stories about things that happened in the 60s and before that have a story to tell. And I think that's part of Tuscaloosa for good or for bad, that's kind of what makes this, this place unique on top of the University of Alabama. So like I said earlier, I think just trying to get people outside those seven weekends to really showcase what we have.
Roger Hurni 15:02
Yeah, so the outdoors is, that things to do, and you've got the civil rights aspect of the whole thing. Is there a, on the other side of that is so let's do to know, is there like a fun fact that people should know about Tuscaloosa?
Stan Adams 15:16
Yeah, I mean, there's a decent amount of those. I mean, like I said at the beginning I mean, Tuscaloosa we’re the only city in the world with the name of Tuscaloosa. There's no other there's no other city in ever answer, I was talking to a guy earlier we're we're in conversation trying to bring a minor league soccer team here, he was like “I really like the name, it's so unique.” And I was like, “well, pretty unique because there's no other place in the world about it.” You know, and there's, there's tons of other things like that, but definitely the name and then our, our history. I mean, we had the we, were we were the state capitol here for about five to six years. You know, the university, there's about two or three buildings that are still there were the only things that were standing when General Sherman came through and burned down the south. So there's a couple of things like that too. But we've got a lot of history here, a lot of things to offer, whether it be from our name is from the Chief, Chief Tuscaloosa. We have a lot of you know, we've got Moundville here, which is, which is was the biggest, I think it would come from an Indian burial in the southeast. So I've got a lot of history that we have to offer. But also, we have a lot of new things coming here too. I mean, that's a lot of, a lot of what we're trying to talk about too. And we've got, you know, Tiger Woods and everyone's all about, you know, top golf and all this stuff, we have a thing called Pop stroke, which is essentially, it's Tiger Woods backed and it'll be open up here in the fall. But it's it's put-put, but it's top golf easier, not as big of an endeavor. But, but that's kind of what our new, our new, what we're trying to do is give stuff to people, for families and younger kids to start doing here. Whether it becomes the Saban Center with the science interactive museum, or Tuscaloosa, amphitheatre music scene, it's really trying to get people other opportunities to really cut to explore Tuscaloosa.
Roger Hurni 16:52
So I'm going to give you some bad news. I know Tuscaloosa may be the only place in the world with that name. But there are 147 Stan Adams on LinkedIn. Soyou know.
Stan Adams 17:03
Well, I'm the fourth, so I already know about the four the same as me.
Roger Hurni 17:07
So, um, let's get back to some marketing questions. I have a couple more sort of serious questions, most DMOS, you can correct me if I'm wrong here. Most DMOS are finding value in developing and putting out there a mobile app for that one-to-one connection, I didn't see one for Visit Tuscaloosa. So why don't you have one? If you do have one, then let me know what that is. And do you see value in having one? Is that something you might go down the road on?
Stan Adams 17:40
Definitely. I mean, I think I think for us funding is a big problem for us. You know, for even for just comparison's sake, you know, you know, as opposed to like our marketing budgets, only $297,000 a year, our whole budget as a whole is only 1.5 million. So that's something we're trying to do is trying to up that marketing budget. So whether it be we just rebranded the Visit Tuscaloosa, we've got a brand new website, we're putting more money in our social media, and all those kinds of channels, we're doing a lot of more data-driven things with a company called Zardeco, essentially, you know, anytime anybody opens up those, those apps that say, Hey, will you allow us to track you, that helps us kind of figure out where people were going and kind of, you know, direct our marketing and more of a pointed direction rather than just kind of throwing stuff at a wall and making it, and hopefully, it sticks. So definitely mobile apps and things like that are definitely in our future. It's just from a funding mechanism. We got to get some things on the, you know, on the, on the path. I mean, I think for sure, having a marketing team that definitely helps us rather than one person, having three people. And that is definitely something on the horizon, I think that we'll definitely get into, because you're right. I mean, everything's mobile nowadays, whether it be QR codes, or whatever we use a lot on his utilize a lot of those because at the end of the day, everyone's got a phone in their hands. And it's a lot easier to do that as well than to just have a piece of paper anymore and kind of get away from all that.
Roger Hurni 18:58
Yeah, I'm going to offer you a free piece of free unsolicited advice. One of the other companies I'm involved in does a lot with an AI and mobile technology in terms of looking at the mobile app, user behaviors, both implicit and explicit, then determine the next interaction. And people think that's often a cost stream, and no one's ever taken me up on this, I've offered this piece of advice two or three times to other DMOS. I'm like, I don't understand why you guys think this is a cost because it's an investment. That can be a revenue stream, you could build an app, because the whole idea is to get people to stay longer, visit more places, right? You could easily build an app, and have it be a recommendation engine based on implicit and explicit behaviors. And what you can do is take all the businesses that are available all the places to see for a minor thing of $25 or maybe $50 a month, so $500-$600 a year for businesses that much, you can make recommendations in that app to visitors that they could recoup that investment on to you with some quarter like 10% discount coupon or some other sort of inducement or incentive. And then it becomes not an expenditure for Visit Tuscaloosa. It becomes a revenue stream to where it's like okay, wow, we're we just increased our budget this year, because we sold a you know, $25,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 worth of worth of sites that people would really get a lot of value of by having them be a listing listing and a recommendation within the context of our app. So something thing to think about.
Stan Adams 20:33
Oh, definitely, I'll definitely take that to our CEO because I definitely think that's something we need to look into. I mean, we're always looking for, for new revenue streams and all that stuff, too. I mean, I agree the marketing. I mean, a big part of what we were trying to do for a while was, I mean, you should go back and look, you can't look at it now. Because we, we deleted it all. But like our old you know, our old website, I mean, the traffic numbers on there were laughable. So I think what our main goal was first is get people to that website, first, let them know our new brand we did we even launched our own brand of clothing, we have that as well now too, such a small revenue stream, we have to at a local store here, you can buy it online, Biden's downtown, but no, I agree. I think I think you know, funding is funding, you know, that's part of it. You're always fighting for more funding, especially when you're, you know, coming from a munisipality standpoint. But you know, to kind of offset some of those costs to kind of as you talked about it an investment, I think that's a no brainer for us. Yeah.
Roger Hurni 21:23
we're another massive opportunity that I'm starting to see. In travel. I know AI, and large language models are all the deal. Although all the media is like talking about it. I am starting to see people doing travel planning in, with AI, and what they should be doing. Are you doing anything, are you investigating anything around in AI initiative and trying to incorporate that into visitors guides or social media? Or in your search marketing? Are you doing anything there yet?
Stan Adams 21:57
Definitely. I think I think they're already looking at them. Our marketing team is looking into that stuff. I think you're right on AI, I think that's something whether it be Chat GTP. I mean, myself, I've done that I just tried to mess around with it. And I went to, went to Fort Worth a couple of weeks ago, and just asked Chat GTP make an itinerary for me, and you know, I have no clue what it's pulling from. But I agree, I think that's a, we're looking at everything, especially on an AI model standpoint, just to kind of get a get an edge on something, you know, we don't have the funding that a lot of other places that are even comparable to us have. But we're a glass-half-full kind of group not half-empty. So let's try to look at new ways and be at the forefront of things rather than being you know, reactionary to things and actually be the people that are making the change first. So then people can look at us as one of those pillars of success and look at innovators from that standpoint.
Roger Hurni 22:40
Yeah, it's really smart. I'm starting to consult with some people on prompt engineering because it's like doing long-tail search SEO, where that language on like, “give me an itinerary.” If you give it more information within the prompt engineering of it, it can provide a better itinerary, like, I like these kinds of restaurants and not these, I like this kind of sport, not this sport, I hate sports, whatever that might be. It really can, can really help in travel planning. I think it's smart that you're going down that road for sure. So I only, I know we're getting short on time here. I only have a few more questions. I'm kind of curious, what's the, what's the biggest challenge you're facing right now?
Stan Adams 23:22
I mean, for us from a standpoint of challenge, I think it's, you know, from, from, especially from a tourism perspective is lack of facilities for us to really bring in those sporting, you know, the sporting events and sports, you know, and especially competence conventions. You know, I'm the head of a sports department. So I mean, we're a sports town. So it's not usually if you're a sports person, you generally know where Tuscaloosa is tourism side of things, like you said, if you're, if you're not a sports person, and you didn't you know what anything, university Alabama, you struggle to even know where we are in the state of Alabama, even if we are in the state of Alabama, one of those big things to from a standpoint of conferences conventions is we don't have a facility outside of one facility called the Brian Conference Center, its largest indoor space is 10,000 square feet, really, really to be a competitor in the, in the conferences and convention standpoint, you really have to have something that's probably about 30,000 square feet, we were in talks that Saban Center is cost discussed earlier. You know, Coach Saban was given 5 million of his own dollars to have this thing built. And we're in talks with the city about building Convention Center for about two years. And unfortunately, that fell through. So having the facilities is really a difficult standpoint, from us and a funding standpoint, to we were funded by three municipalities. And every single year, we have to go up from the standpoint of agency funding, and we have to essentially beg for our dinner every single year. And, and thankfully, we haven't been you know, we haven't been knocked down a few pegs, we've been at least the past couple years kind of increased from, you know, very small standpoint, for about 10 years, we were level funded. So trying to
Roger Hurni 24:46
So so that just so are you looking at some kind of performance management for those three municipalities to say, “hey, every dollar that's spent here, we're you know, for every dollar we spend on marketing, we're, we're putting in X amount of dollars back into the community to try to..”
Stan Adams 25:03
We just did our presentation yesterday and that's what we've been harping on is the ROI. We're the only, you know, government agency municipality that actually gives you a return on your investment. And I think what we're trying to do now is figure out okay, we've done we've shown the economic impact we do on an ROI standpoint, we've shown room nights generated, you know, that's tax revenue, that's lodging, tax, that's everything else. We've shown number of events we host every year. It's trying to figure out what are our, you know, constituents, our city council or mayors or whatever? What is it that they're truly trying to measure that we can kind of push ourselves over the top and that funding kind of, I guess glass ceiling, I like to call it. And I think that's what we're struggling with really at the moment is really proving, showing our numbers. But if for whatever reason that hasn't really broken through to them, and I think it goes back to, you know, a lot of times in our community we hear all the time from local people. We don't need more tourism, we have football. Well, that's a set of seven weekends out of the year thing. And also, if you look at it from the standpoint of I use this analogy all the time with people in the local community. You look at our downtown prior to 2007 that was Coach Saban's first year, there was probably like one restaurant, a lot of things were closed. Now you've got booming business, you've got about nine restaurants got, about six or seven bars down the just in the downtown area alone. And that was a core a direct correlation of all the money in this that copayments brought. Well, he's going to retire soon. So what are you guys going to do long-term when he retires? I thought, you know, during COVID, we proved ourselves from a tourism aspect was a real sports tourism aspect, were the first people to come back. And really, there was nothing going on in the city. And I was, I was told on June 15, here in Alabama, I could start going after events brought in $60 million economic impact, you know, and half a year when the whole world was shut down. And that was when we got so much publicity, I thought that would kind of carry us into ‘21, ‘22, ‘23. But unfortunately, it just hasn't. But you know, we're just trying to find, you know, what's the narrative? What's the court we can hit to really kind of push us over the top there?
Roger Hurni 26:55
Excellent. Excellent. All right. Well, you've been so gracious with your time, I have just one question that I love to wrap up interviews with. Everyone gives advice all the time to people and then their careers, and you're clearly doing really, really well with Visit Tuscaloosa. I'm kind of curious as to, kind of curious to know, what's the worst advice you've ever gotten that you said no to?
Stan Adams 27:24
That's a good question. The worst advice?
Roger Hurni 27:26
I get that a lot with that question. Because no one asks it!
Stan Adams 27:29
No, no, no, no, no, um, I, I got a lot, I got a lot of bad advice over the time, I would probably have to say, I think I think getting advice and this is not to throw my dad under the bus. I love my dad to death. He's an engineer. So let's he owns his own IT company and all that other stuff, getting advice from him and in the industry where I'm a non for profit. I know he means well, but he comes from a for-profit world. Telling me at one point, when I had some frustrations when it came to funding or things like that over the time, well, I would just go in there. And I would say XYZ explicit it, you know, explicatives, whatever. And you know what, and sitting there thinking in for the longest, I think it was one of the first time that I was like, Look, you can't always listen to everything your parents say, even though he may be successful in what he does. But you have to take what he says and see if it applies to what you're actually doing. And, and yeah, if I had done that, I probably wouldn't fire let's be serious. But it came from a good place. He's allowed to do that he owns his own company, it's for profit, you know what I mean? For me, I have to, you know, be, be very cordial be very, you know, even if I want to say some things that I don't agree with, I have to kind of, you know, temper my expectations, and no when there's a right time to talk about it. So I think, I think getting any type of advice from somebody, that's not your industry. I think it comes from a good place, but know if it actually applies to your industry because that sometimes isn't the case.
Roger Hurni 28:51
Yeah. This is why I asked this question because in the context of getting the worst advice, the person answering that question often gives a really good nugget of good advice.
Stan Adams 29:01
That's true. That's it? I didn't think about that. But you're right, you told me there's gonna be a curveball. I've always heard what's the best advice you've gotten or given, but I've never gotten the worst advice. That's a good one.
Roger Hurni 29:11
Oh, you had been wonderful to have a conversation with. I wish you and Visit Tuscaloosa all the best of luck. I just want everyone to know that I had been speaking with Stan Adams, with Visit Tuscaloosa. Stan, where can people learn more about you and Visit Tuscaloosa?
Stan Adams 29:30
Yeah, you can go to our, all of our socials or Visit Tuscaloosa, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and then you got our website, www.visittuscaloosa.com. Or you can just give us a call at 205-391-9200. We’d happy to help you give you any information, anything you'd like or we'd love to have you guys come down and visit a game or anything like that.
Roger Hurni 29:48
All right. By the way, I did have to look up Tuscaloosa on a map and notice exactly where it is. So I do now know where Tuscaloosa is.
Stan Adams 29:57
Well, look, this is part of the marketing experience right here. I got one more person that, that was and hopefully, other people on the podcast will look us up too.
Roger Hurni 30:04
Good. Very good. Well, again, Stan, thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal. We'll see you next time.
Outro 30:14
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.
