The sign says we're at the Baptism River, but we're really at the Baptism River Exhibit here at the Great Lakes Aquarium in downtown Duth.

It's a pretty big week for Duth.

Explore Minnesota is having their Explore Minnesota tourism conference 2026 just across the street from here at the Duth Entertainment and Convention Center, bringing in marketing agents and DMOs and other people involved in the tourist industry from all over the state of Minnesota because tourism is big business.

In Duke, the Chamber of Commerce says it's a $780 million deal every single year.

In the state of Minnesota, we're talking billions, $14.7 billion in economic impact from people enjoying everything that Minnesota and here in Duth has to offer.

See that big guy back there?

That is the definition of a big fish in a small pond.

But actually, this is the big tank at the Great Lakes Aquarium with many different species of fish.

It's one of Doo's newest and most popular tourist destinations.

On tonight's show, we're also going to take you to Duth's very first tourist destination.

Can you think what it might be?

Duth in our region grasp onto tourism.

One of the first things they did was built the Arena Auditorium back in the '60s.

That was the opening salvo in what is a war for tourism.

It's a war because it's a very, very competitive industry.

And that's why we've got special guests on in business to talk about how that competition turns itself to marketing and the whole guest visitor experience here in Duth.

We'll talk with Haley Headstrom.

She's the newly named executive director of Visit Duth.

We'll talk about marketing just for our area and we have a very special guest and that is Lauren Bennett McGinty.

She is the executive director of Explore Minnesota.

She's the one in charge of bringing all the people to Minnesota and of course promoting our state as a destination.

As I said, that is tricky marketing.

And we're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about the trends.

Why is it that people love Doo so much, why they come to the Iron Range, why they enjoy our area in northern Minnesota, what do we have to offer, and how is that marketed to these people that are looking for new experiences?

We're going to talk about all that tonight on In Business.

Welcome to In Business.

I'm Tony Certich filling in for Ken Beller.

This week we're talking about tourism, one of the biggest industries in the Northland.

From the aerial lift bridge to the Hull Rust Mine View.

From the Grand Marray Harbor to the Apostle Islands, tourism helps drives jobs, support local businesses, and shape our regional economy.

To see how tourism is doing across the entire state, we sat down with Lauren Bennett McGendy, executive director of Explore Minnesota.

I'm Lauren Bennett McGinty, executive director of Explore Minnesota, and we work to promote the state of Minnesota all across the country and the world.

Um, our mission is to drive economic opportunity for the state, but also increase revenue.

And we work in the spaces of outdoor recreation, film, and livability marketing, as well as tourism.

Explore Minnesota's marketing strategy for this year, but also for the last several years has been uh the star of the north.

And it's a brand campaign that we've been driving, which is firsterson point of view.

It brings in travelers who maybe have never been to Minnesota before and we document their experience and allow them to kind of help tell the story of our hospitality and all the great offerings that we have.

Um, and so coming into this next summer, we're all about sort of slow, relaxing, multigenerational vacations.

Um, we're really excited to debut a little bit later at the conference.

Uh, more about kind of cabin country and bringing the whole family together for a week or a weekend.

um and really just embracing that sort of slow wellness relaxation back to nature travel.

How was 2025 for tourism for the state?

Did any parks do well and did others suffer like us?

So I would say it was mixed certainly throughout the state.

Some places uh did much better if they had big events.

You know, the Twin Cities metro area had a lot of big concerts and festivals.

Um I would also note that Canada's uh impact was throughout the state.

So, we saw an 18% reduction in Canadian visitors year-over-year, but only 4% in international visitors overall.

So, I think that that sort of evened out a little bit better and international visits to the country as a whole were down.

Um, I will also say we were the better of the worst for uh Canadian visitors.

We have a really great relationship with Canada, so we still saw some uh positive feedback there and some visits.

Um, but overall, I think 2025 was a mixed year for a lot of people.

We uh you know we saw people who had outdoor recreation offerings do pretty well but at the same time the economy is up and down uh all throughout the country and so it makes it a little difficult for people to travel.

One of the things that we do to find replacements for those Canadian visitors is that we drive regional drive traffic.

So we focus on the states that immediately surround Minnesota and then go a little bit further out to states that are like Illinois or Colorado and find people who have a lot of interest in visiting Minnesota.

Um, we also have a great relationship with Canada and our governor issued a statement uh last year welcoming them when they're ready and I think that that's a really important sentiment to share with them.

Um, we know that they're itching to see us and we're excited to see them again, too.

So, I think hopefully we'll start to see that soften a little bit in this coming year.

I know your job is to promote entire Minnesota, but what are the things that make northeastern Minnesota easily promotable?

Well, I would say it's so fun to drive the Northshore as we all know.

Um, it's also really great to do some outdoor recreation up here, but it's fun for the whole family.

You can visit a lake that feels like the ocean, um, without having to go all the way to the coast.

You can go sailing or you can swim or you can even surf in the middle of winter, right?

So, I think there's a lot of opportunity up here.

Um, and things like the Boundary Waters are a big draw for some of those adventure seekers as well.

So, we have some really great offerings in a place that's very calm and relaxing and maybe a little bit of an escape from your everyday for northeastern Minnesota, but actually the whole state.

The trends are are pretty um clear that festivals and events are continuing to drive more and more traffic.

Young people, especially Gen Z, are traveling specifically for the purpose of going to an event, right?

They kind of stake their whole vacation around that with their friends.

So, that's going to be huge.

I think also slow wellness recharging travel is really important.

um you know, we don't have a lot of high-end five-star hotel luxury options here in Minnesota, but we do have um a retreat to nature, right?

And so, we're sort of co-opting luxury in our own way and and getting people outdoors to experiencing things like dark skies and and beautiful landscapes.

I think this year is going to be a lot of bouncing back, but a lot of close to home travel.

I think more and more people are interested in train travel, which is really exciting, and we have some great routes here in Minnesota.

Um, but I think that regional drive travel with family and friends is going to be critically important.

And so for us, it's really just capturing those moments for people and letting them know that we're here and we're ready to welcome them.

And we have great hospitality.

I think one of the the best things people can do is check out explor.com to plan their travel, but really just kind of embrace your own backyard and and find something new in Minnesota.

We just took a look at how Lauren Bennett McGinty from Explore Minnesota views a statewide perspective on tourism.

Now to make this conversation more local and to see how those statewide goals play out here, we spoke with Haley Hedstrom, executive director of Visit Duth.

This is in business.

I'm Ken Bilder.

Thank you for joining us.

We're talking tourism this week because taking place at the Duth Entertainment and Convention Center is the Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference for 2026.

So the whole town is focusing on tourism and we are too and we have with us Haley Hstrom.

Haley is the executive director of visit duth and is the DMO for the market.

Tell me what that means.

So DMO means destination marketing organization.

Right now since the pandemic we've also focused on management.

So it's really destination marketing organization and destination management organization.

So we oversee all marketing for the city of Duth.

That's a pretty big job because Duth has so much to offer.

It It is It's a very big job.

There's such a long list of attractions and things you can see, do, eat, drink, experience, etc.

The marketing right now is pretty much focused on bringing in people from outside our area because that's the definition of tourism, right?

So, uh what we've noticed though is that tourism in Duth, at least for the lodging, was down 5.9% last year.

Uh the area, the region, northeastern Minnesota, had a decline of 5.6% 6% in lodging.

A lot of that was the lack of Canadians coming across the border.

You look at border crossings north of us uh up uh along the Canadian Minnesota border, they're down 20 24 26% depending upon which entry point.

I don't think we're going to get those back.

Probably not anytime soon.

We'll definitely do our best.

We're still open.

You know, we're here for business.

We'd love to see the Canadians come through.

But as we look at expanding our markets, you know, Twin Cities is always going to be our bread and butter.

It's a quick podcast drive up.

Uh but as we look at kind of deepening our reach into other markets, we're looking at places like Milwaukee, Lacrosse, Fargo, De Moines, looking at those growth markets to be able to expand obviously our reach, but also the tourism tax dollars that are coming into town because once those increase, all of the marketing efforts can increase and we can improve our destination overall.

Duth has so many assets when it comes to tourism.

What are some of the gold standards of duth tourism?

Yeah, you know, we think about it.

Lake Superior is obviously the biggest attraction in Duth.

That's easy.

It's free.

You can see it from many different vantage points.

The aerial lit bridge, canal park, the lakewalk, the boardwalk.

You know, as we look at that, there's so many free and accessible experiences there.

But you branch out.

We're here at Ursa Minor.

There's a lot of breweries.

Lincoln Park has such a thriving district for arts and culture.

We have so many familyfriendly attractions.

I came from the Lake Superior Zoo so I have to give a shout out there.

We have the aquarium, obviously the trains.

There's so many things that you can do and it's more than just a day.

I always tell people you cannot experience Duth in a day ever.

And that is kind of the model for when people come here.

It's usually like 2 and 1/2 days that they spend here.

That's good for lodging, that's good for restaurants, it's good for bars, it's good for tourism.

What are some of the new draws that you're seeing in the industry um that are bringing people maybe not just to Duth but to other destinations?

People are really looking for experiences, you know, in fact positive experiences that are positively impacting the community they're visiting.

Almost 70% of travelers want to make sure that their dollars that are being spent are being are going towards good things in that community and are positively impacting the city that they visit.

So, I think as we look at experiences, um, you know, obviously the train ride is one of them.

We have the plays, we have feed a red panda at the Lake Superior Zoo, I think it's just great that we have so many different accessible and inviting experiences where people feel like they can really belong.

Haley Edstrom is the executive director of uh, Visit Duke.

It's the DML, the tourist marketing organization that promotes Duth.

And as we see these trends of experience and what people are looking for, um, how do you market that?

So, it's really going behind the scenes and that's something that's kind of new that we'll be doing for this year on our social media.

We want to make sure we're increasing our organic reach on our social paired with a large paid media spend.

So, we're reaching people obviously that way, but in addition to social media, it's our PR and earn media.

You know, I you're building credibility.

We recently had a wonderful article through Travel and Leisure that highlighted the similarities between Duth and San Francisco, which I feel like is pretty uh pretty big deal.

Um, but as we look at going behind the scenes, we're going to be doing some business spotlights throughout the year.

I would love to go on the aerial lift bridge and you know play operator for a day but just show people the inner workings of Duth what their experience is actually like behind the scenes and then how the people of Duth really make it special the things that we're doing you know visit duth this year will be funding I'm a tourist too which is one of the ways that we train our frontline staff and make sure that they know the experiences that duth has to offer they experience it themselves with free tickets and they're able to share that with the tourists and the people that come One final question.

As the summer progresses, what's our marketing campaign this year?

So, we're sticking with Talk Duthy to me and we're leaning into it.

We're really looking at sharing the experience of what being in Duth is really like from a local perspective as well as creating some additional elements like a Spotify playlist.

When you get bridged, what are the things everybody's gotten bridged in Duth, right?

So, how do we tie that into the campaign?

How do we make merch around that?

How do we really solidify those touch points around campaign messaging to make sure that people end up right here in Duth Minnesota?

I got bridged and listened to the Eagles.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Haley Edstrom is the executive director of Visit Duth and this is In Business.

Thanks to Haley Hedstrom from Visit Duth for sharing a local look at tourism.

When tourists come to see the Northland's many attractions, they need somewhere to eat.

Northern Water Smokehouse, a Canal Park staple, is often a place where people stop when visiting Duth's waterfront.

Making it up north, a digital first series released every Wednesday at noon featuring makers and entrepreneurs, recently caught up with them.

Let's take a look.

We we we love the idea of representing our region with this food.

And if you're doing that, you need to get a lot of your your proteins from the region.

It's really important to to purchase from this region too to to help our local economy.

I think that the smokehouse is unique in that it is truly a food business that started from someone's passion.

He's obsessed with the details of the food.

He's obsessed with what it means to people.

He loves the people that work here and really tries to foster that love in them, too.

So the other thing that we really try to focus on is consistent quality.

I guess attention to detail and attention to place is what I've hope hopefully brought to this food culture here in D I grew up in a food food family.

My mom was a great cook.

uh kind of fell in love with good food and you know we grew up uh fishing a lot and uh we ended up I I grew up in Iowa but we started fishing uh Lake Michigan for salmon and my dad would mess around smoking fish and I really liked it and then um I was in the Coast Guard in uh southeast Alaska Sa Alaska and that's where I really kind of my love of preserving food um really came into being and I moved here um from Alaska in 1995.

And in 1998, I got out of the Coast Guard and started the smokehouse uh smoking preserving uh fish and meats from this region.

When I lived in Alaska, I had access to so much fish.

I fished and hunted all the time and kind of developed recipes and and ways to preserve venison and and salmon and halibit.

And I really fell in love with that process of preserving food and and I thought, you know, here we could I could start something that uniquely represented this region.

There wasn't anybody in there.

There's a lot of smokeouses in the region, but there was uh uh nobody in my eyes that that um was using a style of fish from from Southeast Alaska called Kipperin.

And so I thought I could come here and utilize fish from Lake Superior um and and use that style of smoking to truly represent uh Lake Superior, the region.

Growing up in Iowa, I I did lots of trips to the Boundary Waters.

We were big kind of camping and fishing family and and did lots of trips as a kid uh to the Boundary Waters in Quetico.

Um and so I knew about Bluth and so I I and my wife wanted to go to grad school from Alaska.

So, we decided to to get stationed here in Duth.

Um, and it was a great move.

Love the area and like I said, we wanted to truly represent Lake Superior with our food.

One of the things that I love about working here is uh the culture of the people that work at this place.

um they really uh enrich all of the lives of their co-workers, our customers, I think in just sort of showing up to a job that they actually care about and sort of authentically giving service and sort of celebrating the idea uh that food is a great way to bridge gaps with people and a great way to find common ground.

Um so that's kind of part of the ethos that Eric had.

um in setting up this company was to really like celebrate people and food and how interconnected they are.

So I really enjoy that part of it.

My foray into retail was I put a a single door glass cooler up in the the kind of reception area of the business and I put priced salmon in there and a coffee can for people to put their their fish in.

And it was an honor system, their money in I mean and so people would come in and grab fish out of the cooler and put money in the can and and uh and I was like, "Oh, this is pretty cool."

And I noticed that people really liked liked uh smoked fish, especially around the holidays.

People like to celebrate with it, which is a big badge of honor for us.

like we're part of people's celebrations and and uh anyway, so then in my mind's eye, I wanted to do a shop where we could sell our smoked fish and cheese and other sundries.

And then I just blossomed into making more of our of our products, which we've always kind of held dear is trying to make as much of this stuff as we can.

So we make our own sauces for the sandwiches.

is we ferment sauerkraut and kimchi for the sandwiches and then make all of our own deli meats and smoked fish.

Some of our processes are super unique like the the salami production is just it's a you know it's a process that was developed over a thousand years ago as a way to preserve meat through the winter uh prior to refrigeration and the idea of uh fermenting that meat and then dry curated it so it's shell stable um is really cool but it also turned into an art form in all these little cities in Europe and and to continue that here is really exciting.

It's just a really fun process.

I also love our liver pate.

It's a it's a really unique, cool product.

And all of our smoked fish is is is is amazing.

I eat it every day.

I think we're really akin to like a traditional deli.

Um you know, there are some really famous examples like Cats is in New York.

Uh we're we're similar to places like that, but we definitely have our own um unique spin on it, which is sort of a more northern spin, I would say.

Uh we lean more into smoking fish and things like that, although we do a lot of other stuff, too.

Uh but I think our focus has always been a little bit more on that.

And so, as a result, um instead of a giant pastrami sandwich, which you can get here, too, but uh our most popular sandwich is made with smoked fish, which is pretty unusual.

So, I I guess we're just kind of a a deli with uh different aspirations.

I think it's a really beautiful thing that you grew up fishing the Great Lakes with your dad, learning how to smoke fish, enjoying the Northshore and the Boundary Waters.

You're able to pull from every angle of your life to create this amazing Doo story and this amazing brand that offers so much to this community.

Yeah, it's it's I feel blessed.

I really do.

It's it's been uh it's a great ride.

And so I think culture is always being remade and we've been lucky enough to sort of uh if not preserve the exact same culture, preserve a really positive and um welcoming culture.

This this to me would be a great legacy.

You know, we've I grew up from one I was a single employee.

We now have 75 employees, several of which have bought houses.

is we I've tried to turn these into real jobs for for real people because they are real people and they're great people and I want the food service jobs to be good jobs and and so if that's my legacy I'm super proud of that because um taking care of people is another you know people talk about sustainability all the time and and and that's really worthy cause but part of that sustainability is sustaining people and and if people aren't sustained and and they can't participate in the economy then that's no legacy I want to be part of.

And now let's take a look at some business stories making news around the region.

The owners of Zenith Bookstore, Angel and Bob Dabro, have sold their West Duth business to their longtime manager, Sarah Brown.

The Dobros decided to sell so they can spend more time with family and to experience retirement.

Positively, Third Street Bakery raised over $17,000 for Minnesota Mutual aid to financially assist families affected by the ICE occupation in the state.

For over a week, the worker-owned cooperative put 100% of their proceeds towards Minnesota Mutual aid.

Minnesota Power customers are expected to receive a one-time bill credit later this year.

The credit comes from the sale of land surrounding many of Minnesota P's hydroelectric reservoirs.

With the land sales totaling $72 million, the average residential customer can expect about $109 credited to their bill.

The Duth Airport Authority approved nearly $600,000 as the local matching funds for a federal EDA grant.

The grant would go towards a nearly $3 million project that seeks to build a new taxi lane and to upgrade a hanger by adding doors along with heating and electricity.

Tech startups Ano Aai and Spear Aai are looking towards Lake Superior as a destination for research and testing of autonomous vehicles.

The company's aim to build infrastructure in and around Lake Superior and northern Minnesota to collect data that the companies can use to train AI models that the autonomous vehicles rely on.

The primary goal of this AI research and testing is to find military applications for this technology while also promoting economic and job opportunities for residents in the area.

And for our final story, we're looking back at one of Duth's earliest attractions centered around what continues to draw people here today, Lake Superior.

We began this week's in business by visiting one of Doo's newest tourist attractions.

And I asked you, what was Doo's very first tourist attraction?

Well, this is it overlooking Lake Superior.

At one time in prehistoric times, the water level came right up to here.

We're actually on the shoreline of that prehistoric lake.

And what's left is this beautiful view.

And that came in play when Daniel Barnum, he was a Chicago architect and he came up with what was known as the city beautiful complex.

It was an idea of using bow art designs to make buildings functional and beautiful.

But the city beautiful plan had more than just buildings in mind and duth fit right into that plan.

Daniel Barnum was familiar with duth.

He designed our federal building, designed the county courthouse and several businesses in Canal Park that still exist today.

But his grand prominade, he wanted a place where people could stroll along, walk, have picnics, have horsedrawn carriage rides in the summer and overlook all of this.

It got going by a guy named Rogers.

William Rogers was the first one to catch Barnham's idea and started to build this prominade, this walkway, this skyline boulevard today.

He started building it at 10th Street and expanded it and people were using it just as had been predicted to walk along, to picnic off of, to drive their carriages by and enjoy the beautiful view down below.

By 1894, a lot of it was already done and it had many different names at that particular point.

Oh, it was called the boulevard, the terrace, the overlook.

But the name that stuck was Rogers Parkway after the guy that started to build it.

He got some help from Chester Congden and Gigi Hartley who helped pay for it.

But basically it was a city sponsored project and it grew.

And then along came Sam Snively.

Samuel Snley.

He was the Loo's longest serving mayor and he started building on the other side of this area out between Chester Park and Lincoln Park by his farm no less.

And he started building his own walkway.

Paid for it himself.

Later he became mayor and he expanded to try to connect one end of duth to the other.

He had the vision.

Unfortunately along came the great depression.

Samuel Snively paid for a lot of this work out of his own pocket because the city couldn't afford it.

And in 1929 they renamed Rogers Parkway into Skyline Parkway.

And that's what it is today.

a very popular place that was Doo's very first tourist destination.

I'm Tony Certich.

Thanks for watching In Business.

If you missed any parts of tonight's show, you can always watch it at pbsnorth.org or listen on Mondays at 5:30 p.m.

on the north 1033.

Thanks again for watching.

We're glad you're here.

See you next time.