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

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll learn about the Tiny Print Press at NDSU.

But first, joining us now is the Director of North Dakota Tourism, Sara Otte Coleman, and I started to say director, and then it was North Dakota Tourism Director.

Yeah, okay, we got it out.

Sara, welcome.

And tell the folks a little bit about yourself.

- Yeah, great to be here.

So I direct the tourism and marketing efforts for the state of North Dakota, so primarily trying to attract visitors to the state.

We also do the talent attraction marketing and some other marketing as well, but have been doing that for a number of years, more than a couple decades.

And so prior to that, I marketed Bismarck Mandan to groups and conventions and visitors.

So I've been in the industry a long time, and it's just fun to really be able to highlight all the great things to do and see across our state.

- Well, you've been a regular here in the spring because we always wanna talk about what's going on.

Maybe not a lot's changed, but let's start off, tell us a little bit about what year '24 was like for tourism.

- Yeah, you know, we had a good year last year.

Some areas were up, some were flat, some were slightly down.

National park visitation was pretty stable.

We saw strong increases in flights, people flying in, so that's pretty interesting.

That was up about 10% and that continues to grow.

And we do do some marketing.

While most of our visitation is drive, we do do marketing in the direct flight cities, Chicago and Phoenix and Minneapolis and Denver.

So those were good numbers.

We also, we saw in '24, we actually saw an increase of Canadians, about 10% increase of Canadians coming over the border.

Still not reaching pre-pandemic levels, but still moving in the right direction.

Hotel was fairly flat, but we were up in terms of revenue.

And both of the sales tax categories that are generated from the tourism industry, accommodations and food services and arts, entertainment, and recreation were both up significantly.

- So what do the prospects look like for this summer?

- You know, we're optimistic.

There's a lot of factors in play right now, but Americans in general are planning vacations.

Just about every poll I've looked at, every survey of Americans and American traveler-specific, most of them are prioritizing travel, even in a tighter economy, they're prioritizing those experiences, and travel is one of the things that they really wanna do.

- Well, a lot of things we'll talk about, but Medora is a big destination point with the musical there and understand they've got a new leader hired to lead the musical.

Can you comment about the impact that might have, and also just the impact Medora and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park have?

- Yeah, Theodore Roosevelt National Park's our number one attraction in terms of what motivates non-residents into the state.

And so we we're always excited to work with them and to really feature the benefits of the national park and the fact that it isn't crowded and we've got a lot of the same services and beautiful views and trails and access, and you don't have to fight for a parking spot, so to speak, or wait in line for an hour to get through the gates.

And so we'll continue to market that.

Medora is the gateway city to the south unit.

It's actually the 60th anniversary for the musical this year.

They did change the production company last year, and then this year, they'll have new hosts again.

And I know they've announced some of their Burning Hills Singers and the band and whatnot, so it's always fun to see that show kickoff.

But they've also really diversified their other entertainment options, even throughout the winter.

Every weekend, they had entertainment and concerts that were sold out.

And so that's pretty exciting to see more offerings beyond.

They've also expanded their point to point trail, which is right in Medora, if you just kind of go up the hill on kind of the east side of Medora, they've expanded that kind of into where some of the trail riding trails were.

So you can now hike all of that, which is great if you don't, you know, especially hikers, if you're gonna go out in the national park one day, then you can hike right in there the next day.

But then we also wanna always mention Watford City, because they're kind of the gateway city to the north unit at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

And they also just continue to grow their amenities.

They've got great restaurants and coffee shops and ice cream stores, and their visitor center is just great as well.

And they actually just had a golf course, a brand new golf course that they had done out there.

And so that's also another place to consider if you haven't been to the north unit lately.

- Okay, well, staying with Theodore Roosevelt, how excited are you about the library as a tourist destination, when that opens, and what's that looking like?

- We are really excited about the library, to say the least.

This is really going to put North Dakota on the map.

Theodore Roosevelt is just so well-loved by so many people.

And this isn't just a library, this is gonna be a world renowned museum and library with programming, and how it's melded into the landscape really ties into his conservation ethics and the ability to even explore it without, even if you don't pay for an admission, you'll be able to enjoy so much just from the outside and the boardwalk and how they're gonna interpret that.

And so yeah, we're really excited for it.

That'll kind of be our big America's... For America's 250th, that's kind of when that will kick off next year.

But we're working already, getting media, telling the story, getting people excited about it.

- So what are y'all talking about of the concerns of potential job cuts to national parks across the US for that matter, but how it might affect North Dakota?

- Yeah, we're obviously concerned about that.

Initially earlier this spring, there was some concerns with retirees, they offered early retirements to a lot of folks and seasonals.

Now the seasonals, they did hire, all of those were in place.

And so as far as I know, we've got good staffing at both the north and south units here.

And of course, the Elkhorn unit.

None of the programming will be changed.

At one point, there was thoughts that maybe some of the events might have to be canceled, but none of that is happening at this point.

So we're excited and hopeful that the National Park operations will continue as planned.

There are some other cuts that Senator Burgum just announced last week regarding specifically non-national park sites that are managed by the National Park Service.

And so it's just really kind of too early to tell what those all might entail, but like national historic sites and some of those other sites about looking at some budget cuts in those areas.

So we'll have to dig into that and determine if that impacts Fort Union or Knife River, any of our other attractions.

- Well, I don't know, you mentioned former Governor Burgum, now Secretary Burgum.

Has that had any impact for you at all just with the notoriety of a North Dakotan being in that position?

- Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think what I try to assure my colleagues around the country, because obviously there's uncertainty, and I'm chair of our National Council of State Tourism directors and just past chair of our Western States Tourism Policy Council Group.

And what I remind them is we know there's volatile times right now, we know there's uncertainty and everybody's got concerns, but Governor Burgum loves the national parks and he loves the land and believes in the mission of the National Parks Service.

And so I think while they get through some of these bumps at the Department of the Interior, I know he'll have the American people in mind when he makes those decisions.

- Well, let's turn to I guess another concern you might have with the tariffs and the Canadian tariffs I'm talking about here, Canadian traffic to North Dakota might change a little bit, and there've been talks about it, and anecdotally, I've heard some different things.

So what are y'all talking about at the state level with concerns over all of this?

- Yeah, we are very concerned about our Canadian visitation for the summer.

January was actually up slightly, but February, we saw double digit decreases, and March was also down more than 20% in terms of border crossing.

So I think we were 17 and 24% down, which is significant.

That's the number of vehicles, but also the number of people in each vehicle is down.

So what we're seeing is that people are, maybe the family who committed to this hockey tournament every year is gonna still go to the hockey tournament, but everybody might not go.

And yet some of the last minute trips we think aren't probably happening just because of the sentiment right now.

I certainly have heard from a lot of Canadians with their concerns and try to assure them that we understand, politics, we try to keep that out of our work, and we just wanna welcome people, and we want them to know they're welcome.

And so we've changed our marketing slightly, we delayed it a little bit, and now we're really doing a little bit less intrusive marketing, just letting them know that we understand, but when they're ready to come back, we're sure excited to have them back because we have a lot more in common with them than we do have differences.

- So maybe tell us about some of the tourism conferences you've been to and what's the discussion like there?

Yeah, tell us about it.

- Yeah, so we had a travel industry conference recently and that was very well-attended.

I think there was a lot of energy, a lot of people were really just looking for insights on how do we stand out, how do we compete better in a marketplace where we know there's gonna be more people trying to attract Americans specifically in our region.

And so great collaboration, really good speakers.

I think overall, everybody's pretty optimistic about the year coming ahead.

And then I was also recently at our regional, we call it the International Roundup, IRU, and it's with the consortium of states that we call the Great American West.

So we market along with South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho globally.

So we have seven different reps that work in like 13 or 14 different countries.

And so what we were hearing from them was that Europeans and Scandinavians and the Nordic countries, even Australia and New Zealand, they're still coming.

They really haven't canceled dramatically.

Some of the US data showing that people are flying in at the same rates from those countries.

But the people that are coming for leisure visits book those ahead of time.

They're something that are planned on, they've maybe been to other parts of America and they really wanna see the central part and the Great American West.

And so we had actually a record number of tour operators at that event, especially from countries like Australia and New Zealand.

So we're optimistic as well.

We may see, we'll be interested to see the following year what that looks like, because a lot of the bookings were already made and people didn't cancel.

- Well you talked about Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but what are some of the other big attractions in the state?

- Yeah, we've got such an interesting variety, and that's, I think, what sets North Dakota apart.

Sometimes people think, well, what do we have besides Medora?

Well Medora and the National Park obviously are there year round, but those are really seasonal.

And so what we really have all the time is a lot of our venues, and a lot of events and activities and festivals that happen around those venues.

So those are big attractions throughout the year.

This time of year, I feel like we kind of kick off with car shows where we've got all these great, you know, everybody wants to get their vehicles and their fun cars and motorcycles, and those are through main streets and venues throughout the state and concerts, everything from the Red River Valley Fair to the state fair to North Dakota Country Fest, all of those kind of things really do attract people.

Rodeos, we have rodeos statewide, powwows statewide, a couple of the big rodeos, we've got Roughrider Days in Dickinson and then Mandan Rodeo Days, but there's also the Roughride Cup Rodeo, which was the first, the first time we hosted that one was last September, and that's Chad Berger Bucking Bulls sponsors that and coordinates that.

And those were the top rodeo contenders in the world.

And I was just astonished to see how many people came in from all over the country that literally had their phone up the entire time and are videoing all of these performers because it's one of those last chance rodeos to get to the finals.

But then you also look at everything from state parks to historic sites to museums, the state heritage center and museum and capitol are of course big attractions.

This time of year, people wanna get out on the water.

So there's a lot of those outdoor recreation-related attractions as well.

So we're really a collection of a lot of smaller ones rather than some states where you have that one big attraction that everybody comes for.

- Well how about, what's the brand this year?

How are you branding the state this year?

- So the brand hasn't changed, that still be legendary, but we have, our campaign has been, we call it Hello, and it's a really fun campaign.

It wasn't scripted, it just shows families out enjoying North Dakota.

The energy and the vibrancy is just really fun.

I think we filmed in 15 or 16 different communities last summer.

And so the videos are running, the TV is running, the digital marketing is running, the print will really kick up, or has kicked up in March or April and May.

We've got all sorts of sponsorships, and so we're super excited for the new campaign.

We think it kind of introduces our friendliness, right?

We're known, so we're always hearing about how, oh, North Dakota's nice, everybody's so friendly.

They just appreciated the fact that we were there.

So we leaned into that.

And then we also, it kind of has a dual meaning because so many people don't know anything about North Dakota, so it's kinda like hello, you should know something about us.

It's time you came to visit.

- How many staff do you have in your division around the state?

- Yeah, so we have 14, but they also, as I mentioned, do all of the marketing for talent attraction as well as all the programs within the Department of Commerce.

- And how did your division fare in the legislative session recently closed?

- Yeah, you know, we took a little bit of a cut on the destination development grants, so that dropped about $10 million down to 15 million.

Our marketing stayed pretty flat on the tourism side, but some of the talent attraction marketing was eliminated.

So it's kind of a mixed bag.

- Well, what about campsites?

I know some people have talked about they're worried that campsites won't be open, won't have staff.

Any comments on those?

- Yeah, some of the federal campsites we are concerned about.

We've been trying to reach out to the Corps of Engineers to confirm whether or not the closings are gonna be season-wide or if they're just temporary closings until they figure out where they're at.

But some of those other federal campsites, we are concerned about and trying to monitor those.

We'll try to keep our website up to date and current so people know where, but I think you think about the lakes and the rivers and those places that you traditionally go, but we've got a lot of other really cool places that you could camp.

You think about Buffalo Trails Winery, you can camp there, Fluffy Fields, they have a harvest host program, they have room for a couple RVs there.

Some of the golf courses.

You mentioned you've been out golfing, the links course up by Williston-Ray area, they actually have cabins that you can rent right on the course, or they have camping sites there as well.

And then some of the other camp sites that are really not well known.

Maybe the Juniper camp site or campground up in the north unit, or some of them, like around Killdeer near the little Missouri State Park are another great option.

- How critical during the summer are student employees or volunteer employees helping at the parks and attractions?

- Yeah, they're critical, and that's one of the things that we wish we had more time to work on is to educate, especially younger people coming in, even in the middle school area, so that they understand what great experience it is because it's those soft skills.

It's those soft skills that they learn and employers love.

So we're hopeful that a lot of people will wanna get some experience in the hospitality industry.

- Sara, we got a couple of minutes, but what's the best part of your job?

- Oh, I think the best part is just being able to brag about the state.

You get to talk about all that's good about the state.

You get to dispel a lot of myths.

People think it's cold all the time and it's flat and there's nothing to see.

And it's just fun to dispel those myths and to show them what there is to see and do, whether it's through the marketing or by hosting them here in state.

- Hmm.

Well, that's interesting.

If people want more information, if they wanna find out more, where's the best place for them to go, what can they do?

- They should go to ndtourism.com.

Great trip itineraries, ideas there, events are all listed there, accommodations, campsites, you can find it all there, ndtourism.com.

- Well, if they had one or two things to do in North Dakota outside of Medora and the Theodore Roosevelt Park, I guess, where would you point people?

- Our conference was in Minot this year, and downtown Minot is doing some really fun things.

Just great energy and continually improving.

So I think even just going to those communities that you maybe haven't been to, checking out their Main Street, checking out some of their new amenities and some of the new activities that they have throughout the state, that's what I would encourage.

- Well Sara, it's always fun to have you because you bring new exciting things for us to hear about.

We thank you for joining us.

- I enjoy it.

Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) You might think of a printing press as a big bulky piece of equipment, but NDSU's School of Design, the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and the Chahinkapa Zoo in Wahpeton have come together to create the Tiny Print Press, a technologically fun and friendly device used by the elders and school children to make an endangered species field guide.

(upbeat music) - Well the Tiny Printing Press is related to a project we did previously, which is we developed Tiny Printing Press with activity guides that were then distributed to over 200 schools in the state.

And the thought was that for those care facilities and schools that have a pen pal program, for instance, they could print postcards, stuff like this off of a Tiny Print Press and be in touch with one another.

(people chattering) This was a model that was done in Europe developing these Tiny Print Presses, which are made by 3D printers.

So they're very inexpensively made, but very durable.

What we did with the school ,NDSU, is we worked with their department and said, "Okay, some of the people we work with have physical limitations.

How can we change the design of a Tiny Print Press to make it more accessible to be able to be used effectively with people who have mobility issues?"

- I love the design of these presses.

Part of what I love about it is that it's absolutely a functional item.

- Got it.

Muscles, there you go.

- So the first step is is that we will get our hardware, different components 3D printed, and then I will assemble components and stages.

(upbeat music) And everybody, when they first see the tiny press, everyone has to turn the handle because it's such an engaging piece of technology.

- We first started working with the North Dakota Council on the Arts and the Art for Life program through a project that used the tiny press as a way to move through different folk art curriculum.

And then what we would do is take that curriculum that we developed, move it into elder care facilities and schools as a way of both teaching that as an art form, also working with printmaking.

And then there was also a sort of intergenerational component where we would think about how can we use this as an object that can bring people together.

(gentle music) The endangered species field guide is sort of a fun twist on the project because it allows us to play with something that is almost like a collection process where visitors to zoos or people who engage with the field notes, they get to go and see some of those animals and then use the press as a way to sort of engage with something like a paw print or go ahead and print sort of a version of that animal or a sketch of that animal.

- We identified the endangered species at each of the four zoos.

So I reached out to the other zoo directors.

We have four zoos in North Dakota.

And they were happy to give their list of endangered species.

And then we sent that to those helping with the field guide and wanted to showcase some things.

Sometimes people don't think that North Dakota has these species.

It's just a wonderful way to involve everyone in this fabulous project.

- Today was the Tiny Printing Press with the endangered species.

- [Presenter] Pretty neat.

- [Sara] We had the zoo come in and talk about the different animals at the zoo and some of the endangered ones.

And then NDSU explained the Tiny Printing Press, and then the kids and the tenants got to operate the printing press.

The interaction between the students and the tenants was great.

The intergenerational learning between the two is phenomenal.

You have the residents that when they start talking, their eyes light up, they start to smile.

Some people who are withdrawn when they see a kid and the kids start interacting, they come out of their shell and they express their feelings and communicate better with the kids than they do with say you or I.

- Who doesn't love working with or seeing animals?

When you bring together art that is then also connected to animal presentations and interaction with animals and interaction between elders and kids, the room just lights up.

- The residents have become our friends through the years.

It's more than just visiting and talking about the zoo or giving enrichment.

We always say if the seniors and the kids get half as much out of it as we do, it's a win.

To bring that full circle, when those kids came in, sat at the tables with the seniors right away, didn't hesitate, very friendly both ways.

And to watch the seniors and the children work together with the Tiny Printing Press, with the animal plates in there, and making cards and making pictures and smiling and laughing, - And we keep finding that it's this funny little object that we can move into these different settings, and it's really flexible.

All it is is a tool that makes prints.

But when you start to imagine it as a tool to engage people and a tool that can be used to help form connections, all of a sudden, its application becomes really broad.

- Well I think this project really has potential to become a model, not just in our state, but in many other states.

North Dakota is seen as a national model for art and creative aging.

But then you also see the children, like we did today, helping the elder and asking advice for the elder.

It shows that goodness, I think that interaction between generations.

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

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts, and by the members of Prairie Public.