(upbeat music) - Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce is celebrating its newly announced Visitors Center project with a launch party this November.

Our guest today, Liz Pitts, is here with all the details.

Hi Liz, so you're kind of kicking off what will be the Visitors Center that's coming in 2026?

- Yes, that's what we're doing.

- Okay, Okay, why don't you to make sure we got that right, and tell us about it and why you're having that?

- Yeah, we decided with the Utah LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce to launch this project to open a Visitors Center, an LGBTQ Visitors Center in downtown Salt Lake by May of 2026.

The reason we're doing this is, there are many reasons, but two of the top reasons are, of course, to bring more tourism revenue into Utah, and along with that, show that Utah is a welcoming and diverse place to spend your tourist dollars.

And then also to connect visitors and local folks with our LGBTQ and allied business community.

We have so many wonderful businesses who are chamber members and others who we will be using this Visitors Center to connect with.

- That's great, that's great.

I know you're gonna host community events as well, kind of talk about that.

- Yeah, yeah.

We are going to be hosting community events.

This is going to be a multipurpose space for sure.

It will also be the first brick and mortar location of the Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce.

We will be hosting small community events, chamber events, and so forth.

And we will be also hosting local queer arts and local queer Utah history installations at the Visitors Center.

And we're hatching a plan to host something about winter sports.

- Aha, aha!

So clever, okay.

(Liz laughs) And I know you're all also going to look at providing affordable retail space for folks.

- Yeah, and that is one of the things I am absolutely most excited about the Visitors Center.

We will be working with a number of very small micro businesses, our artisans and our makers, the kinds of folks who potentially have a Etsy shop right now.

And online retail is wonderful, however, to have small bits of retail space for those artists and makers to sell their wares.

- Well thanks, Liz, thanks.

- Yeah.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce, the kickoff, November 7th from 5:30 to 7:30 at Laziz Kitchen.

Go to utahlgbtqchamber.org.

I'm Mary Dickson, thanks for watching Contact.

(upbeat music) - Local events, arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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