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Hello. Welcome back to Peak into our Week.

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I'm Alexea Veneracion, Director of
Communications at Visit Colorado Springs.

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And I'm here with Lindsey Pevey,
our Partner Relations Manager. Hi.

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So Lindsey was on back in like 2023.

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So it's been a hot minute.

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Been a minute so, welcome back to the pod.

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Thanks.

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Today we are going to talk a little bit
about Visit Colorado Springs.

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We were thinking we’re like,
we interview all of our great partners,

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we talk about businesses
to go to community events, but like, do

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the people know really what Visit
Colorado Springs does?

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Yeah.

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We missed a vital element of that
in this podcast launch

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we've been running for three years now,
so we're going to just take a step back

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and tell people a little bit more
about who we are and what we do.

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Awesome. Let's do it. Yeah.

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Before we do it, though, we're sipping on
something from one of our partners.

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We've got some drinks here. Cheers.

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I've got a nice tomato.

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I've got a nice little iced cortado. Yep.

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Half milk, half half coffee, even ratio.

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These are from The Exchange,
which is located right here, in downtown

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Colorado Springs, by our Visit
Colorado Springs Visitor Center.

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So if you ever stopped by to get

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pamphlets, visitor guides and all that,
you should stop by The Exchange.

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Get yourself a little caffeine boost.

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You'll probably find someone from Visit
COS there as well.

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More than likely,
we're there almost every day,

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so definitely check them out.

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But yeah, let's let's get into it.

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I wanted to start just by sharing.

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Like anecdotally, we work at Visit
Colorado Springs, of course,

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but I had no idea, like what a destination

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marketing organization like ours
actually really did until I started.

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Did you feel the same? No,
I felt the exact same way.

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I had a little bit of
of perspective prior to Visit COS

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just because I was working in the sales
world.

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Yeah. At the Broadmoor.

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But other than that, like,
I knew about the organization,

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but it wasn't very clear
exactly what we did.

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Yeah, I feel like
the general vibe is like, oh, you're

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the visitor center,
so you just invite people to come to that

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destination, which, yes,
that is a big part of what we do.

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But it's like just scratching the surface.

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So just sharing a little bit more
about who we are and our mission.

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Like we really want people
to come here and create memories

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and get out and check out things
they maybe have never heard of before.

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And we're not just trying to, like,

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get more and more visitors
to Colorado Springs.

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We want people to like,
stay longer, explore all there is to do,

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and not just like frequent
the same, like tourist spots,

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like we want them to feel a little bit
like local too, while they're here.

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Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

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And I think I used, the Visit
Colorado Springs website

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mostly whenever I was moving here

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and was a local, and I didn't even realize
that's what I was on either.

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I was just looking at all of the
just to go in it like comes out.

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Exactly.

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So it was fun to make that connection
once I actually started

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with Visit COS I was like,
I felt the same way.

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It's I moved here ten years ago
now, but when I first got here,

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I was doing like a lot of googling
and yeah, like our resources

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that Visit COS popped up a lot
like the blog posts and things.

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And I still use them as a local
and someone who works at Visit

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Colorado Springs,
like I still use the resources.

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Absolutely. Not just for visitors.

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But we also get into,
like, things that people don't

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necessarily realize, like destination
stewardship,

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some destination marketing organizations
even call themselves DMMOs

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for destination
marketing and management organization.

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So like the destination management part
gets a lot into stewardship,

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which is like sustainability

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and being good stewards of the land,
encouraging and educating visitors

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and locals about how to like,
keep parks and trails and open spaces.

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Great.

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So we do a lot of work with that.

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Like, you know, you've brought on partners

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for us in those spaces,
like the Palmer Land Conservancy.

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Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation
Alliance is a great partner of ours,

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and we work so closely with Parks and Rec
and all these different

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organizations to be good stewards
and make sure visitors are too.

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Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

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And that's something that I,
I've learned a lot about, destination

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stewardship from being, Visit
Colorado Springs.

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It was something that wasn't
necessarily in my world, like,

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I kind of knew about it, but
but actually really understanding the ins

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and outs of those programs and exactly
what they mean have been really helpful.

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Not even in just hiking,
just in your daily life and thinking

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about the different principles, 
like leaving no trace, even though,

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yes, that's specific to trails,
quote unquote.

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It can very much
be used as you're walking down the street.

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Yeah. It's like that.

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Oh, yeah.

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I think it's so important for downtown

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areas to like, we want our downtown
to be clean and taken care of.

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And so those principles

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really carry through, just like what
we want to see in our destination overall.

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Absolutely.

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So I think that's a huge part of
what we do that maybe people have heard,

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but just don't necessarily connect
the dots of like a visitor

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center or marketing organization
working on those initiatives.

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Right, absolutely.

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And then another huge element
of what we do is giving support

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to our small, locally owned
family businesses in Colorado Springs.

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Those are like the heart
and soul of our partner base,

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and we want people
to learn more about them.

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And we get to like, learn so much,
which is so cool for us.

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And then share their stories like, yeah,
they've got the coolest stories.

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Absolutely. I tell people all of the time.

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One of my favorite parts of this job
is quite literally what you just said.

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Just getting to know
some of these people who had a dream,

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had some ambition and made it happen,
and just hearing their stories and,

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seeing different ideas
and where they came from.

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And that's by far been my favorite part
of this job, is getting to know those,

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small business owners and entrepreneurs
and just people like that

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who, are really making a difference
in our community, even in small waves.

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But they're the heart
and soul of our community.

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Yeah.

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And when we bring visitors here
and we're sharing about these businesses

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and the owners stories with them,
like it really makes

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them want to go out and like,
go off the beaten path and.

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Yeah, and build this itinerary
that's a little more creative

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and like less like your typical things
that you would think of

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when you go to Colorado Springs
or the mountains, like there's

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so much more,
which we're going to get into

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in the coming months, but
we're working on a big project right now

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called the Pikes Peak Areas Project,
where we're going to have like this

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huge resource on Visit COS.com
where you can go,

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you can filter by like the different
areas on the map and really see,

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like what is there to see
and do, to eat and drink to?

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Where is there to stay
that's maybe more unique.

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And we'll have it really segmented by area
across the whole region

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so that people can get off the beaten
path.

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Yeah,
I'm excited for that personally as well.

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Yeah, I'm
excited to learn about new neighborhoods

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and different things

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within those neighborhoods
and the history and and all of that.

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I think
it's going to be a really cool resource.

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I know it's something that I look for
whenever I'm traveling is

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I want to very much be more, in the realm

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of where locals are going and understand
the different parts of the city.

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So yeah, you guys have done a great job
putting all of that together.

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It's been a lot of fun to watch you.

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Yeah, it'll be out hopefully by June,
but we'll definitely be sharing

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with our podcast listeners
and on all of our platforms.

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So you will see it when it's out.

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Other things I wanted to touch on
are just like the other parts

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of a destination marketing organization

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that exist and are so vital
to what is happening

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that, like, people don't like the general
public doesn't necessarily know

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as much about unless you've worked
in like hotels and such, which you did.

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And you used to be on our sales team
before you were on our partnership team.

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So like maybe you can share a little bit
about like group servicing and meetings

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and like how that's so important
to what we do.

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Yeah, definitely.

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I mean, like I said previously,
whenever I was in sales in hotels,

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we would work with Visit
Colorado Springs with the groups.

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I was an assistant then, so I wasn't
necessarily in tight connection with them.

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But I was seeing correspondence
and kind of putting some dots together.

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And then I started at Visit
COS like you said, in the sales department

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and really understood
that what they're doing is going out

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and selling the destination,
which is interesting.

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Whenever you don't have a necessary
you don't necessarily

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have a product right,
to be selling as tangible.

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Right.

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Instead of a hotel
where you have rooms and, and the rates

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and all of these things,
our sales team is going out

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and selling an idea more than anything.

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One of the
of the things that I truly loved

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whenever I was in the sales department
is whenever we would go to trade shows,

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they go to about 30 trade
shows a year, give or take.

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It's a lot.

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And they have a, small
but mighty team as well.

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But one of the things that I thought
was really cool

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whenever I started going to
those trade shows at first, is

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anybody that I would talk to
for the most part, you have appointments

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and things like that.

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Most people, even if they hadn't
taken their conference,

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they would sit down and say,
I love Colorado Springs.

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And a lot of people had been here
with their families.

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And so then like, great,
think about having a meeting

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for your group here, right?

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Yeah.

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So that was always
a lot of fun is making those connections.

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And we do help we work with,
some of the hotels specifically as well.

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We'll go to these trade shows with us.

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So it's a little bit different
than you would think a normal sales

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job is but it was a lot of fun to do.

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Great sales team there.

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And then we have our group servicing,
like you were mentioning.

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So those are things that we can offer
to our conferences,

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things like our lip balm,
that's famous apparently.

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And, our visitor guides and dining
and shopping list starts

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with exactly what they might need
for exactly coming to town.

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And that can be anything from conferences
to a wedding

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to a family reunion
to just like a group of people

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that you're going to have come
stay at your house and you want.

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Yeah, some guides for them

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like that is available for everybody,
not just our big conferences.

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Yeah.

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And it's, 
like free service to the public.

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Like, if you're getting married here
and you want to reach out to our group

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servicing team, like, they'll connect you
with who you need to be connected

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with, and you don't have to pay us
to help with that.

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Like, it's all part of what we do.

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And I think a lot of people don't

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realize that, like,
you can use us for those things too.

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Or if you're planning
like a high school reunion or a family

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reunion here, like reach out to visit COS

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will help you find like the right venue
you need, the right catering you need.

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Like all of our connections.

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We will

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yeah help you
and they do a really good job as far as

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listening
to what each group needs as well,

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rather than just giving a big list
of a bunch of things. Yeah.

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What vibe do you want exactly, exactly.

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They get to know you pretty personally,
to make good suggestions for you

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and recommendations.

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And then,

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we have our contacts at the venues and
catering companies and things like that.

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So we have
we have those connections for you.

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So just. Yeah.

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Use us. Yeah.

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Or if you have a planner,
send them our way. Exactly.

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They'll be able to help them too.

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Exactly. Yeah.

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I think that part is so important.

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And then going back to like meetings
and conferences and conventions,

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like bringing those to town

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especially like in the off
seasons, is just so important.

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Like it helps keep our economy boosted.

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Everyone knows Space Symposium
as the big one that's happening right?

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Right now as we speak in April.

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And it it does so much to help
with our local economy.

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It brings in lots of people.

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And then those people go out
and they have some downtime

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where they want to like,
check something out in town.

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Anyone who goes to conferences,

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if you're like me,
like I like to do some kind of exploration

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when I'm at a conference, especially
if it's a city I've never been before.

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I'm like, yeah, I'm not just going to stay
in a conference room all day.

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I want to get out and see it.

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Exactly. You're traveling all that way.

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You might as well
check it out while you're there.

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And we've got a huge selling point
for that in Colorado Springs.

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Like, you can get out and go on a hike

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in the afternoon
after your sessions are over. Absolutely.

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So I would want to hold an event here.

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But yeah,
I might be biased. I know, same here.

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A few last things that people

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maybe would be interested in that
we're going to be coming out with soon.

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We've got a new AI powered

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chat feature that's going to be launching
on our website in the coming months.

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For this. It's cool.

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We're in the testing phase,
and I'm sure everyone's

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familiar
with playing around with like ChatGPT.

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This will be very niche and specific,
like to our website

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and what there is to see and do in
Colorado Springs,

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but you'll be able to like go on it,
ask it a question,

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and it will scan and crawl our website
and other resources.

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And it could build itineraries for you.

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Like it'll save people
a lot of time with their trip planning.

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Absolutely.

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Hopefully teach them some things
and you won't have to dig on your own

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through our website, which is a pretty
vast website with a lot of content

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so I'm really excited for that
on a personal level too.

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My, like you being from out of state,
I have a lot of family that comes to visit

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me, and we can very much be
creatures of habit, almost like to the t

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go to the same places at the same time
every time they're here.

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Yeah.

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And so I'm excited to use it

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to branch out myself as well
and find some stuff to do.

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I feel like

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you could even prompt it with like,
hey, this is usually what my family

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likes to do.

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What are things similar?

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But like a different experience
and it will give you those things.

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Absolutely.

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So again we're testing it right now

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making sure it's in good shape
before anyone else uses it.

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But it'll be a great fun for sure. Yeah.

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And then another thing coming
that people really are

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hyped about every year is our crafts
and crafts drink passport

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that launches in May and it goes
all the way through the end of the year.

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And the theme
this year is going to be so great

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and fun as it is every year,
but look out for that.

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More to come.

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Yeah, just look for some hints around,
but you'll hear about

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it soon one way or another.

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I don't know anything else

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that we missed about, like what we do that
people might not know about.

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Yeah, I mean, I think I think a lot of it
we covered,

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I think from a business
perspective is putting together that.

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Yes, we help market
you to visitors and locals alike.

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However, a lot of our partnership as well

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that I think is really important
is the business to business partnership.

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Yeah.

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That's kind of been a bit of my war
path in this position.

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We do a lot of really fun events and
mixers, and I'm always encouraging people.

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While, yes, it's
great to get to know our staff,

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everybody needs
to be getting to know each other

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because you never know when you're going
to be needing someone for AV,

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you need an artist to coming
teach a class for a group or something

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along those lines.
That could really be anything.

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00:16:04,213 --> 00:16:07,758
So I think people yeah,
I think that's something that,

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people don't always put together
until they're in or organization.

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And then we love to connect you
with people as well.

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If you, you know, need
somebody for a specific service.

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I'm sure we have a couple of them,
at least.

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And can that connect you
with those people?

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So that's something that I think
is really important in our world as well.

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00:16:26,735 --> 00:16:27,736
No, that's a good point.

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If you're a business owner listening
or you work for a local business here,

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00:16:32,741 --> 00:16:36,870
tell them about Visit Colorado Springs
and explore partnerships with us.

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00:16:36,912 --> 00:16:39,415
Yeah, we love to bring on more businesses.

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00:16:39,415 --> 00:16:42,459
And then on the just like locals residents
side of things.

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We had done a survey of our residents
and their views on tourism

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back in the fall, and now we've launched
what we're calling the Locals Corner

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00:16:52,011 --> 00:16:55,764
on our website,
and it has some key takeaways

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that we got from the survey,

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00:16:57,808 --> 00:17:02,479
some resources and data points
about tourism and then some locals

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00:17:02,479 --> 00:17:06,191
only deals and discounts
that people can take advantage of.

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00:17:06,442 --> 00:17:09,778
So if you are a resident of Colorado
and you want to

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00:17:09,987 --> 00:17:13,407
check out that locals corner,
oh yeah, I highly encourage it.

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00:17:13,407 --> 00:17:17,911
It's new and we want you to use it and
reach out to us if you ever have feedback.

326
00:17:17,911 --> 00:17:19,038
Yeah, absolutely.

327
00:17:19,038 --> 00:17:19,663
Absolutely.

328
00:17:19,663 --> 00:17:22,291
I think that's going to be a really fun
resource as well.

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00:17:22,291 --> 00:17:25,085
Cool. Yeah, I think that's a wrap. Really.

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00:17:25,085 --> 00:17:29,339
So thanks to The Exchange, thanks for our
drinks and thank you for listening.

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00:17:29,339 --> 00:17:31,425
If you have questions, hit us up.

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00:17:31,425 --> 00:17:34,344
Media@VisitCOS.com.

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00:17:34,344 --> 00:17:35,471
Thank you. Bye.