(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll visit the Historic Park Theater in Park Rapids, Minnesota.

But first, joining me now is the North Dakota Tourism Director, Sara Otte Coleman.

Sara, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Yeah, happy to be here.

- Well, it's that time of year again.

We always have you here in the spring.

Tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background before we get started into the things that are gonna be happening.

- Sure, I've been at the state Tourism Office as the Director for the past 21 years, and prior to that I spent 15 years marketing the Bismarck Mandan area.

So have 35 plus years in travel and tourism marketing.

And it's just a great job.

You get to be able to talk about all the great things about North Dakota, try to improve awareness, and increase visitation throughout our state.

So yeah.

- You've got a fun job I would imagine.

But how is the mild winter this year?

How's it gonna impact or will it impact tourism in North Dakota?

- It was a tough year for outdoor winter recreation as much as some of us enjoyed the fact that we didn't have to get those shovels out, I also didn't get my cross country skis out once.

And so that's always hard to do.

We love to have those weeks where we can get out and enjoy the fresh, crisp weather.

So some of the recreation areas I think suffered a little bit.

I don't believe there were any of the snowmobile trails that opened this year.

So outdoor recreation took a little bit of a hit.

Ice fishing that's something that people love to do and travel a lot.

And there was good ice at certain points, but again, people had to be paying attention a little bit based on the weather.

That said, our ski resorts, most of them have enhanced or are in the process of enhancing their offerings and they can make their own snow.

So while their seasons were a little bit shorter and they didn't get a lot of help from Mother Nature, they still were able to offer some experiences on those downhill hills.

- And that's interesting.

We're talking about summer activities, but you're right, I've got friends that he got new skis for Christmas and never put them on.

- Yeah, that said, you're gonna be able to get out on those hiking trails earlier, they might be a little muddy here and there because we're getting a little bit of rain.

But for the most part, I think people are ready and bikes are out.

You're seeing bikes out and about whether it's on trails or cycling around town.

So I think the summer sports equipment's gonna get dusted off earlier.

The golf clubs are probably coming out.

- Well, with all that said too, let's look back just real quick.

What were North Dakota tourism numbers like in '23?

- We had a good number, good results last year, we had about $3.55 billion in travel spending in 2023.

That's according to US travel data.

We'll get our detailed data next month that will break it down more specifically and look at it by county.

But when you look at the 3.55 billion, that's $9.7 million a day spent by visitors.

It's really, people have a tough time fathoming the impact of this, but it's because there's so many different experiences that visitors can participate in statewide that the numbers really, really add up.

Just about all of our metrics were up, National Park visitation was up over 11%.

Airline boardings were up over 11%.

Our border crossings from Canada was also up about 47%.

Still not quite where we would love to be, but that number's really grown.

Our international, our global arrivals beyond Canada also increased, in general, our overall arrivals that we track by geolocation devices, that was also up significantly, up about 15% over last year.

So everything was up, I think when people think about, okay, what do visitors spend money on, their minds immediately go to hotel rooms.

And we sold just under 5.4 million room nights, which was a 7.2% increase, and that equated to $531 million in hotel sales.

But really, visitors spend more money on food and retail than they do even on hotel rooms.

So that kind of puts it into perspective.

- Well you say they're up now here a little bit, are people traveling more and more past Covid now and hope we're well past Covid.

So are those numbers picking up because of the downturn in Covid or can you talk about that at all?

- Yeah, we outpaced the nation in terms of growth this past year and some of it is recovery, especially when you're talking about group travel and global folks.

Some of it is just kind of getting back to it.

But now that those sectors are rebounding too, you're seeing a higher level with everything because our leisure travel had rebounded pretty quickly.

The only thing that hasn't rebounded to pre-pandemic levels would be our Canadian border crossings.

Some of that is attributable to I think the fact that patterns just changed.

We don't have all the hours that the border crossings opened as long as we'd like them to yet because of limited resources at the federal level.

But some of it I think is also due to exchange rate.

When you look at the border crossing numbers that we have now, they're similar to what they were in 2017 when we had this kind of an exchange rate.

- So that's '23 a little bit.

What about your projections for '24?

- Well, I wish I had a crystal ball, but everyone's saying it's gonna be up, and significantly that people are going to continue to travel, they're gonna prioritize it even though inflation and cost of goods and whatnot is up.

It seems to be a continued priority.

Americans are getting out more.

The interesting piece I think to see will be if, because of the airline situation and with flights being more expensive and limited, we don't have the flights that we used to have, that may help us because we're primarily a drive destination.

I mean, we still market to those direct flight locations, but that might help us if families can't afford to buy the plane tickets for all five members of their family.

They might be looking at road trips.

And so we're optimistic.

All indications are that we're gonna have a good solid year this year.

- So how do you promote North Dakota?

And of course when you say tourism, a lot of people think, well that's people coming from out of state into the state.

There is tourism with North Dakota people traveling in North Dakota counted in your numbers.

So how do you promote it in the state and out of the state?

- Yeah, so we do primarily promote North Dakota outside of our state borders.

Our job is to really generate new revenue for the state.

But there is that component about educating North Dakotans, right?

Because you might choose to, instead of, especially here in Fargo and you might choose to go west and go further into North Dakota because it's pretty easy just to go to Minnesota.

So we do wanna make sure that we're providing resources and educating people on the new opportunities that are available here.

But most of our dollars are spent outside.

We market heavily in Minnesota, of course, they're our number one market and they make up about 50, a little over 51% of our visitation comes from Minnesota.

Of course we do really well with South Dakotans coming in and Minnesota as well, just because it's convenient.

They can come more often and they're more familiar I think with our offerings and our geography.

Then when we go beyond that, we target pretty heavily in Illinois and Wisconsin and have seen solid numbers from those two states as well.

And certain niches we market in other areas, like for example, Arizona and Nevada.

We've got great golf experiences here.

So marketing golf, when it's a hundred and whatever, 20 degrees in Arizona, come up to North Dakota where it's cool and we've got fabulous golf courses.

We also saw tremendous growth in those areas and we're gonna continue to target those markets as well.

One thing about those visitors is they stay longer in market, so they're a little bit more valuable.

- So as you're promoting, what brand are you using and I guess what campaign are you using, and talk about the differences here.

- Yeah, so our Be Legendary brand continues.

It was built on the Legendary brand that we started back in the early 2000s.

And it really focuses on what sets North Dakota apart, which is our legends and our stories and our people, which is built on what's unique to North Dakota.

We have had a really fun campaign we did last year and we're continuing it this year called Hello North Dakota.

And it kind of is twofold, hello because we're welcoming, we're friendly, people love to host visitors, but also like, hello, don't you know anything about us?

You should come and experience what North Dakota has to offer.

And so we're building on that campaign, freshened up the imagery and whatnot.

We'll do kind of a combination of mediums.

You have to meet people where they are.

So while 10 years ago we were spending the bulk of our money on maybe broadcast and television, we're spending less on television.

We still do connected TV and over the top and some of the other video executions.

We do spend the largest chunk of our budget, about 44% on digital channels.

- So let's talk about some of North Dakota's biggest attractions.

Where do most people go when they come into North Dakota?

- Well the number one attraction of course is Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

It's a large attraction, it can attract, whether it's a family that just wants to do a scenic drive or whether it's somebody who really wants to experience mountain biking or old west culture, entertainment, recreation in the gateway cities of Medora, Watford City, the National Park continues to be a number one driver.

Right behind that though is our venues.

So when we are able to track where people are coming into the state, we track them by what's called point of interests.

And where we've seen tremendous growth is in the venues.

So whether that's the Fargo Dome, whether it's the Bismarck Events Center or the Ralph Engelstad Arena, it's all of those entertainment, recreation type things, sporting events that are at those venues that are also really strong attractors to the state.

And then of course we've got some fabulous museums and cultural centers across the state that really help help tell the North Dakota story.

The North Dakota Heritage Center is one of those.

And there's also those experiences that are unique like the dinosaur digs or some of the experiences that you can have in some of our state parks or state historic sites.

- So let's turn to what specific fun and maybe tourist-friendly events might be coming this spring and summer around the state.

- So one place I'd encourage people to go to if they haven't been for a while or never been would be the International Peace Gardens.

So they are opening their new conservatory expansion project and of course you can straddle the Minnesota or you can straddle the North Dakota Manitoba border up there and they're just gonna build some great events around that new opening of the conservatory.

So that's something to consider for an event.

If you're looking at state parks, all the state parks really have some fun events throughout the years.

So I would really encourage people to go online and look at maybe an area they haven't been to and then search specific to that state park because that would be a good hub for an event or a festival to take place there as well.

A couple other events that are big is the music festivals, that continues to be a big, big growth area, whether it's the state fair or the Red River Valley Fair, or ND Country Fest, or Norsk Hostfest, anything that has live national music is really popular and fun.

- You mentioned state parks, of course I get you into trouble, right.

Can you mention the various state parks or some of them and when they might be open and ready for camping and crowds?

- Yeah, I'm sure all those campers are getting anxious with this warm weather.

I've seen a few people out cleaning them out and getting them ready to go.

So the beauty about North Dakota State Parks is that so many of them have different experiences.

All of them have campgrounds I think.

But for the most part, there's unique experiences depending on what your interests are.

So Little Missouri State Park is a great place to launch if you love the rugged badlands and want to do some horseback riding on trails and whatnot out there.

Sully Hill is same, they have great, great horseback trails out there.

Icelandic State Park in northeast North Dakota is is a one with fun heritage and culture and you can visit an interpretive center right there at the state park.

Another one with some history is Fort Stevenson State Park located on the North shore of Lake Sakakawea.

That's where they actually have a military installation right there on the shores of Lake Sakakawea.

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park I think is probably one of the most interesting ones right in the center of the state primarily because they have great events and camping and water because it's on the Heart River, actually kind of the confluence area where the Heart and the Missouri, but they also have the Custer house, On-A-Slant Indian Village, and then the Infantry Blockhouses as well as a great trail system along the Missouri River.

- Well, yeah, that was, the Custer house and how interesting it can be to go to that and visit that park.

- It's great.

And you can do the barracks, they've got several of the buildings that are rebuilt there and they just really bring history to life at that place.

- What about some of the hidden gems, anything out there you might talk about that the state people don't think about, but be great places to go?

- Well one of my favorites is there's a little resort near Williston, the Ray area called Lunds Landing.

And Lunds Landing, they've got a marina, they have some cabins, but it's a really beautiful area, but they also have this little cafe that has the best Juneberry pie in the state of North Dakota.

So if nothing else, you go in there and enjoy some Juneberry pie in that area.

And that's a really fun area to experience.

So that would be Western North Dakota.

In eastern North Dakota, obviously the Pemina Gorge is an area a lot of people haven't been to, but the communities in that area, whether it's catfish days Drayton or Grafton or any of those communities, they have a lot of fun festivals and events that take place.

And then of course, Devil's Lake, I think people sometimes tend to think that you have to go to our neighbor to the east to hit the lakes.

But Devil's Lake has just phenomenal fishing and great resorts, great camping, great amenities, a quaint downtown area.

That would be another area.

- So there you go.

Hidden gems, so to speak.

How many staff do you have to do all the promoting and tourism for you?

- We have 14 on our team, but we not only market North Dakota to visitors, we also do the talent attraction marketing, so the Find a Good Life campaign when we do all the B2B marketing for our economic development and finance divisions and our community service divisions and do all the promotions for the other work and education on what we all do at the Department of Commerce.

So we have a lean team, but they accomplish a lot.

- With that said, of course you're always looking for funding, I assume.

Can you talk about what priorities you might have coming up for next year's legislative session?

- Last session, we were given some dollars to stand up a Destination Development grant program, which we saw tremendous interest in.

We had 81 projects that applied for over 151 million in funding and we had 25 million to allocate.

So we funded 14 projects throughout the state.

We're really hoping that the interest in that and the quality of some of those applications will help elevate that program at the session next year and that we'll get some additional dollars to build those destinations because we've been talking about the marketing side, you also need to work, that's kind of the supply.

You also need to work on the, or that's the demand.

You also need to work on the supply side.

We need to increase capacity, especially in certain areas and certain pockets across the state.

So we're super hopeful that people will see the value of that because not only does it help attract and entertain visitors, it improves our quality of life.

And then the marketing piece, of course, we know that most people don't know much about our state, and I don't take it personal when people say nobody knows anything about our state because we really don't have a lot of money and haven't spent a lot of money over the last several decades when other states in our region have been spending significant dollars.

So we just really need to continue investing in that image and that awareness of our state.

- What do you learn when you go to various conferences and talking about other states in our state?

Anything significant?

- It's always fun to go and kind of compare what you're doing.

And usually I'm really impressed with when I start talking about especially new marketing tactics and strategies that we are ahead of the game in many, many cases, even with our small staff, we really are cutting edge when it comes to things like our interactive map on our website.

We use a chat bot that helps get people the answers that they need really quickly on our website and live chat and whatnot.

So in terms of technology adoption and some of the marketing tactics, I think we don't take a second to anybody, but then it's always fun to kind of just see how other states package and promote their activities.

And we can always learn whether it's marketing help or packaging help or development.

- So what makes this state so special and where can people get more information?

- I always say what makes our state special is are people.

I think we're so welcoming and warm and we hear that all the time.

And so when people come to the state, we always exceed expectations, no matter what they came to do, we always exceed expectations and it's often because of the people.

And you can find out more information at ndtourism.com, everything you need to know right there.

- Well, Sara, I hope you have a great season.

I hope we all have a great season, and thanks for joining us today.

- [Sara] Great to be here.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) Open since 1939, the Park Theater in Park Rapids, Minnesota is a still functioning example of the art deco style movie houses that were built in the 1920s and '30s.

The community has supported and maintained it for decades, and the new owners bring their own unique background to running the majestic theater.

(upbeat jazz music) (dramatic music) - [Speaker] This prophecy is how they enslave us.

- They're automated.

If I schedule a program, it'll play its own show.

If everything is operating properly, you can just turn it on and then walk away and at 6:54, it'll start playing the trailer.

- [Narrator] I see everything.

- You look down Main Street and you see this big tower with all these neon lights.

When it's on at night and it just kinda lights up, that's this look and feel of a main street that you would have to have millions of dollars to build from scratch today.

It's a kind of a miracle that it's still here.

And as new owners of the theater, I feel like it's our job to honor that history.

(upbeat jazz music) - It feels like a very important part of this town.

And so we feel very supported by the town, loved by the town.

- It's just one of those kind of classic Americana things that a lot of small towns had back in the '30s and '40s.

This theater was built in 1939, the last real year of the art deco era that had been going on for a few decades.

The theater was built by the Baer Brothers.

It obviously had to stay operational and just functioning throughout the 85 years.

And so there had been a lot of changes.

It was originally a one screen, it had 550 seats or so, and it was a one screen movie house and it had a stage for live performances.

And eventually in the early '90s, a wall was built down the middle and it was twinned into a two screen.

And then in 2010 to 2012, when it got its 35 millimeter upgrade to digital projectors, it got a third screen.

I applaud all the history of this building because it's still here, it's still showing movies like it always did.

My wife and I ended up owning this theater.

It's really worked out really well.

Yeah, we're a married couple, we're business partners.

Now we're movie discussion buddies.

Like we get to decide all these different things like what movie to bring in and talk over the finances.

We've found that each of our strengths are perfectly suited for what it takes to own and operate a small indie theater.

She's more the bookkeeper, the math nerd.

- Tim and I have joked that he had to buy a movie theater or we had to buy a movie theater in order for him to get me to go to the movies, which is not entirely true.

We've gone to the movies plenty of times because I know it's his favorite thing.

But I'm an introvert and I don't like crowds and so it's not my favorite thing.

It's pretty perfect for us.

It's not perfect, it's really hard, and it's really overwhelming, but for us it feels like the perfect fit.

- My wife and I moved back down to Los Angeles, lived in Burbank because I got a job at Warner Brothers, even working for Warner Brothers, it was both a dream come true and so tough.

Like it's that Hollywood churn.

You're a cog in a big machine, you get torn up and kind of spit out the other end.

And after five years in 2015, we decided to move out of LA.

My dad's originally from Minnesota, from Minnetonka, but now that both my parents are retired, they spend half the year out here in northern Minnesota, they floated this idea to my parents, anybody know anybody who might want to buy the theater eventually?

And that message got to us.

Did you guys want to move to Minnesota and own the Park Theater?

- We are in a very tourist-driven area.

So in the summer, it's really, really busy.

Tourists come from all over.

That's when we make a lot of our money that is sustaining us for the year.

During the slow season, it can be a lot more difficult.

Another challenge is, and something that we didn't realize when we bought the theater, is how much money the studios take from our ticket sales.

So when I was doing our year end numbers, I think about a quarter of our gross income went back to the studios.

- We hope to do some more remodel, renovation, write those grants and raise that money to keep the Park Theater beautiful.

And also maybe peel back the layers and look at the art deco bones that it originally had in the late '30s.

- [Speaker] Make sure people get the corn, not the kernels.

- While we all streamed like crazy and stayed indoors during the pandemic.

And that's still an option, I stream at home.

It's just, yeah, I think people are still coming out because they wanna leave their living room and you want a different experience.

It's a good-sized theater for this town and this area.

There are big multiplexes further away, but if you're in town, you wanna see a good movie, it's been working for the Park Theater for about 85 years and so somehow we just wanna keep it working.

And the trick there is, yeah, balancing that art and commerce.

- It's been wonderful.

Tim and I have lived a number of different places and we've loved all of them for different reasons.

This place feels like home.

It feels kind of magical.

It's bigger than ourselves.

I think part of what's magical about it is it's a dream that we didn't know was a dream.

- Well that's all we have on "Prairie Pulse" this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.

And by the members of Prairie Public.