How Explore Minnesota Generates $25 Billion in Economic Impact

Hey everybody, it’s your hospitality friend, Glenn. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of No Vacancy. So I’m excited today because I don’t always get a chance to talk to people at state associations.

 

The one that are helping you folks out there get people interested in and choosing to stay with the state. So I’m psyched about that particular conversation, but I gotta be honest with you, we can’t get started until we thank our friends over at Actable. Actable, they give you the power to profit.

 

Please check out actable.com. They’re gonna help you with labor and scheduling and all of that kind of stuff. And a lot more that you don’t even realize with a lot of their partners as well. All right, so let’s bring her in right now.

 

We got the incredible Lauren Bennett McGinty, Executive Director of Exploring Minnesota. Lauren, how are you today? Good, how are you? I’m good. So I’m gonna start off with a very annoying question, set the tone for this podcast.

 

How often when you say your job, do you have to suffer with people going, Minnesota? Probably too often, honestly, but I think more than anything, they’re surprised that my accent isn’t that aggressive. Yeah. I think they’re expecting me to be straight out of Fargo and I’m just not.

 

So- I totally get that. People think that because I’m from New York, then, hey, we’re gonna go get some coffee over here or something like that. But, you know, we can speak like human beings, I think.

 

For sure. So I’m excited to be talking to you. We’re recording this interview in, let’s just say July.

 

You guys actually have your three weeks of amazing, warm, incredible weather over there. How are you thinking about Minnesota these days as overall tourism beyond the kind of places that always hit the news, you know? Like Minneapolis, St. Paul, Mall of America, all of those kind of highlights that we have out there. And Lauren, I got some friends out there and everybody has a lake house, it seems.

 

So maybe that’s an interesting place to start. Yeah. I mean, we are the land of 10,000 lakes.

 

We have actually over 11,800 to be exact. But- Oh, so you guys should probably work on getting that changed then. Put together a petition.

 

Maybe the new advertising could be like, Minnesota, now with more lakes. I think that would be really great. I’m so sorry.

 

That’s okay. Yes, because 11,800 plus really rolls off the tongue. And you know, we’re in advertising, so we definitely can workshop that.

 

But lake life here in Minnesota is kind of, all it is cracked up to be, honestly. So if you see any of our advertising and people are out on a boat, on a lake, or jumping into a lake from a dock, like that is kind of perfect Minnesota summer. And just like as a point of correction, we do have more like four weeks of really great weather, not just three.

 

But no, we, I mean, we love summer here. And I think that’s great. No, it’s like the winter in places in Minneapolis, you have the buildings that are attached and all that kind of stuff.

 

So it’s like, who cares? But go on. Exactly, and we make it super easy for people to kind of experience all that we have to offer in every season, which I love. I think that’s what makes Minnesota so special.

 

But you know, aside from those big headline spots, we love the Twin Cities. We love the North Shore and the Mall of America. But we also have an amazing food scene throughout the state of Minnesota.

 

I mean, we have folks cooking Cajun food in small towns. We have award-winning chefs from, you know, among background, multiple actually, among chefs who have won awards in Minnesota. We have every sports team in Minnesota, including women’s sports.

 

I think the one that I’m really excited about right now, of course, is the Lynx, but we also have fantastic soccer teams and hockey teams. But we also, I think more than anything, have access to nature with a really strong urban feel throughout the state. We have several sort of urban areas scattered in different corners of the state, but within that, you can go maybe 20 minutes and you can be in the woods or you can be on a trail or go paddling or something like that.

 

So it is really this huge connection through nature and experiencing that, that kind of brings more of us together. And it’s like, everybody has a story of being out in Minnesota and eating at a great restaurant in a small town, but also going on a wonderful hike in that area too. And so I think that that is what makes us more than that one note destination that people kind of experience in the headlines.

 

Yeah. One place that I love is Stillwater. I’ve been there before.

 

It’s one of those really fun for us non-staters, undiscovered small towns that like have it all, right? So I know you have a lot of those types of places that really celebrate that Americana kind of feel and vibe. And I guess I get connected to the 250th birthday of America since it’s like July and stuff like that now. So I love that about your state, but you have so many different things and it’s gotta be a challenge constantly to think about how you set yourself up to differentiate from our other 49 state friends and the 180 countries or so out there around the world.

 

So question I have for you is, how are you really thinking about what Explore Minnesota roles is for like hotel and hospitality leaders set against this backdrop of trying to figure out what is quintessential Minnesota or what are your various personalities? Yeah, it’s a great question because I think for Minnesota, we’re a state agency. We really try to have equitable coverage of the whole state when we’re talking or doing our marketing campaigns. And it’s hard, right? There’s lots of great places to visit.

 

There are a lot of great things to see and do. But I think more than anything, we kind of create that top of funnel demand. We’re really driving interest and awareness of the state as a whole.

 

And of course, then in our campaigns, we’ll drill down to certain areas. But we recently kind of did an exercise where we planned out our summer campaign and we did a list of every single destination that was featured in the campaign. And we had over 200 destinations and attractions in just our summer campaign alone.

 

And I think that really speaks to the depth of what a state has to cover. And so that supports hospitality and hotels throughout the state. We aren’t just driving people to go to one location.

 

We’re saying, have your lunch at this location and then you can hop on a light rail and head downtown for a sporting event and have dinner there or whatever that looks like. And so we’re really trying to move people around. We’re trying to get them to extend stays beyond a few days if possible.

 

And even in like an international sense, one thing that we love is the idea that you’re flying into MSP, which is the number one airport in North America, and you can stay a few days and go out West or go East or go South and then come back, right? And a lot of folks like to come back with an empty suitcase and fill it at the Mall of America, which I also love that story. Here in New York, people used to do that for the store Century 21, that’s down in the World Trade Center area. Yeah, yeah.

 

So I think for us, it’s really like, how do we move people around and ensure that we’re hitting all those spots, especially for smaller towns or lesser known destinations so that they don’t have, they’re not necessarily making millions of dollars every year in lodging taxes. So it’s our role to kind of support those efforts too. And of course, in 2024, we’re just about to get our 25 numbers, but we welcomed more than 81 million visitors and generated nearly $15 billion in visitor spending, which is an economic impact of nearly $25 billion.

 

And so I think people don’t realize that tourism, I like to call it like an immediate return on investment because you can put efforts into marketing. Like we do a lot of work in sort of the long range marketing business attraction, resident attraction, but tourism is immediate. And you get those results within months after putting an ad out there.

 

And I think that that’s what makes it really helpful to a state’s economy, to a community’s economy. And it keeps those places moving and it keeps things going. And that’s where I think people kind of forget that tourism has such a strong impact.

 

Sure does. And my guess is that you’re really helping out more of the independent owner as opposed to some of the big hospitality companies, which are great, but they’re gonna be in the urban location, for example, focused on that convention business, more of that sort of stuff. They’re probably not a small inn on the side of one of your 11,800 lakes that doesn’t have the resources in order to act as their own agent to be able to get people to come.

 

So you’re helping create visibility that gets the light focused on Minnesota, which gives all of those small voices an opportunity to be heard. I think that’s what you’re telling me. Right, and I think it goes both ways, right? We, of course, encourage people to stay wherever they can afford to or want to, but- It’s different if you’re getting the convention down at the convention center versus the privately owned business that’s a small business like you or I might run.

 

Exactly, and in Minnesota, we have a really strong entrepreneurial culture. We have lots of really boutique hotels and places to stay. We also have a really strong resort culture, especially in kind of what we call the Central Lakes area.

 

And so those are owners who are, it’s been passed down for a hundred years or more throughout a family, and they’re kind of keeping it alive and keeping that nostalgia in place. And it is a really special part of our state that we love to support. And actually, that’s our whole summer campaign this year is really talking about our resorts and those family owned and operated experiences.

 

Yeah, and that’s interesting because your campaign is Come Visit Your Neighbors, which plays into a nice time, even though you got this major international airport there. And I’ve been there plenty of times. My guess is that people are going to be doing a lot more driving, particularly up in that part of the country.

 

So how are you thinking about being neighborly and getting people over into your state? Yeah, so Minnesota obviously has a reputation of having great hospitality. And I don’t think that has ever been questioned. When you come here, we want you to feel like our neighbor.

 

We want you to feel like you know where you’re going and that we can give you advice. I mean, I’ve literally outside of my office in St. Paul have had tourists stop and say, hey, do you know where this is? And without missing a beat, I mean, of course I’m a special case, right? But I think it sort of speaks to Minnesotans when you can just, without missing a beat, say, oh yeah, that’s right down there. Good luck, have fun.

 

And so for us to kind of capture that experience that we want people to have when they come here and put it out into the world, I think is really important because in a world where tourism sometimes feels like everybody’s competing. And if you don’t have a Disney World at your destination, then you might be getting kind of lost, right? But for us, it’s like, what do we bank it on? We bank on those personal experiences. We bank on that surprise and that joy that you feel when you come here.

 

And I think that the Star of the North campaign and then the Visit Your Neighbors campaign really sort of exposed the part of Minnesota that makes us maybe more unique than our neighbors or people with similar offerings. So I think, even if it is international, you’re traveling to a foreign country, you don’t know anybody, don’t you wanna go somewhere where you feel welcomed? That’s kind of how we look at it. We really just want people to feel like their home when they’re here.

 

Yeah, I love that. And I actually think you’re being really smart impression about where we’re headed in terms of travel wise. We’ve got a couple of things going on out there that I see.

 

I think people are getting tired of spending money on the big event activities, such as those famous theme parks and stuff like that. By the time they get you for one day, it’s thousands of dollars a day. I think that set against the backdrop of technological overload.

 

We’re all feeling like these devices are in our faces all the time and we’re craving friends and family time that’s away from that. So I believe your destination with all of its outdoorsyness and other ways of people to enjoy themselves really puts you in a really great position right now to be able to leverage opportunity, which is kind of why I love this come visit your neighbors idea. I think it really cuts through all of that noise and tells people exactly what they can expect.

 

A lot of people are just focused on doing the, hey, come here and relax. Look at this picture of people walking along the beach, holding hands at sunset and the famous rocks on the back for the massage picture. But you’re telling a bigger, deeper story over there.

 

Yeah, and you can do all that here, right? But I think one of the more special things is a lot of our campaign work for the last few years has not been from Explore Minnesota’s point of view. It’s been from the visitor’s point of view. And that makes such a huge difference because in a world where, like you said, technology is in your face and you’re trying to make travel plans with AI and you’re trying to kind of sift through all the noise, you want to read reviews and what’s a better review than somebody literally in a campaign saying how much they loved a place for the first time.

 

I think that’s what makes our campaigns a little bit different. We might have outdoors stuff to do. We might have arts and museums.

 

Lots of places have that. But if you aren’t seeing from somebody’s perspective exactly why they loved it, it makes it harder to make a decision. So for us, it’s like, we’ll put our neighborliness on display, but we also want to make sure that when visitors come here and we film them experiencing that, that that’s what you see.

 

You’re not just reading reviews on an AI-generated overview. You are actually seeing and experiencing that joy for yourself. Yeah, I think that’s a really great point.

 

I think when it comes to the AI stuff, people are really able to read through it and see that it’s not authentic and genuine and doesn’t really connote the type of experience that folks are looking for. So we talked about out there and your 11,800 lakes and stuff like that, but the cities and the big events are still really important. For example, I did a great podcast with the folks in Sacramento, California, and they really worked hard to become known as a food city, right? And they create events around that.

 

And they’ve had some music festival with great success. You’re in a great position. You’ve got a huge football team, for example, and other things going on.

 

I’ll say state fair, which is probably the most famous one. So how are you thinking about these massive events in your state as well? And we need to get to the why I have never been to your state fair question too. Oh man, you have to.

 

It is like, it’s a real experience. I’ve been, I used to work for the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild. I used to run our space at the state fair.

 

It was a huge space, it still is. And to go there every single day and just to see how many people are there, it’s wild. And now I don’t go as frequently.

 

I don’t go there every single day of the fair, but it is such, for Minnesotans, like people take off the whole time and it’s kind of like everyone’s on summer vacation at the same time, but it is just this wild, I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s definitely worth attending. It’s just such a fun way to kind of see every aspect of Minnesota in one place. For those out there who don’t know, speaking specifically on the food and beverage thing, the state fair is usually the ones that push the boundary on what the whole notion of fair food can be or has the potential to live up to.

 

And I say that with all its caloric delight and goodness. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of things that are deep fried, which is I think the best part about it. But we also, I’ve having worked with the food and beverage folks in my past job, know that they are on it.

 

They are going to food festivals, they’re going to craft beverage festivals throughout the year to find like, what are those really special things that exist out there that we can bring to the fair so that if you are coming in from New York or you’re coming in from Lake of the Woods in Minnesota, you are experiencing something that you can’t get anywhere else. And so we literally have people who have won James Beard Awards. They have stands at the state fair.

 

So I think when people think of a state fair, they’re like, okay, you have horses and sheep and maybe some like corn dogs. It’s like that times a hundred. It’s really just a state fair that is a full culinary experience while also the classical state fair supporting agriculture, but also tons of art.

 

And we have a full education space, lots of our destinations and booths at the state fair to invite people to travel there. So it is really this giant experience that I, you know, I’ve been to other state fairs and it really doesn’t compete with any of them. Well, that’s why I want to see it so badly because I know, well, for those of you who don’t know, I grew up here in Long Island, New York.

 

We don’t really have fairs or anything like that. It’s just not the culture here. So I haven’t really had an opportunity to see what these amazing things are.

 

I mean, we had Adventureland, which is like a four acre little tiny amusement park, but it doesn’t compare to what you’re doing. So that’s a huge event. How does that really affect overall tourism and then your opportunity to connect the dots to the non-fair parts of Minnesota? Yeah, so especially throughout the summer, you know, we do a really great job of having major events and we’ve got a couple coming up.

 

We have the Yacht Club Festival, which is really exciting. I don’t think there’s actually a lot of yacht rock at the festival, but I’m excited. I’m going, I get to see- I might go see Toto.

 

I’m going to see Toto this summer. Nice, I love it. Yeah.

 

But then like, we have a lot of just sort of Minnesota celebration festivals, which is great. The Taste of Minnesota is a really fun one in downtown Minneapolis. But most recently, it just wrapped last week was the Special Olympics USA Games.

 

And these are kind of the bigger events that we attract through a lot of our partners in the private sector. And it was so special. I mean, it really was such a joyful experience to go and watch these athletes compete in all kinds of sports.

 

I mean, some of these things I’m like, why don’t we have these in the other Olympics, right? Like bocce ball, who doesn’t want to watch people compete in bocce ball? Because it’s better than watching someone in my backyard do it. I don’t know, I heard the competition’s real force in the Bennett McGinty household, so I don’t know. My father-in-law would probably agree with that.

 

So, I mean, I think one of the things that we do really well as events in Minnesota, we have some incredible teams who, again, it’s that hospitality. We’ve got WWE SummerSlam coming this summer right before the state fair. And that’s gonna attract hundreds of thousands of people.

 

And so I think from a tourist perspective, there’s this notion that if you go to Minnesota, you’re gonna go to the lake, you maybe go to the Mall of America, right? But again, this goes back to those questions earlier is like, we’ve got tons going on here and truly something for everyone. And it’s an opportunity to celebrate all kinds of different cultures. It’s an opportunity to kind of try something new in the middle of the city or in greater Minnesota.

 

We’re really excited that WWE has come in and they’ve been able to, for the last couple months, like be out and about in different cities in Minnesota and working with schools and things like that to really kind of demonstrate that when you come to Minnesota for an event or a festival, it’s about the whole state. It’s not just about one location. And so we do a really good job at that here.

 

And I’m always excited when we have a big event coming up. That’s great, because it’s sometimes hard for states that have such a huge city that captures all of the attention of people and it’s hard to get beyond there. We have that same problem in space, I would say here in New York, right? I’m of the attitude because I’m from Long Island that anything above Westchester County, which is just above New York City is not really New York, right? So if we think that downstate, right, then it’s gotta be a lot more difficult for those folks.

 

So I really applaud what you’re doing, which then gets me thinking, how are you thinking about the connecting the dots between Explore Minnesota, hotels, DMOs, and other associations that help promote tourism? Yeah, we do that constantly. We have an industry relations team that’s kind of out literally in the field in other parts of the state. And we are always kind of listening for what’s new, what’s notable, but also what’s just kind of returning and coming back.

 

And one of the big things that connects us with those groups is outdoor recreation, I would say. We do a really good job at that here, but also we’re constantly developing new opportunities. And so when we talk about big festivals and events, but then also talk about kind of year-round activities, I would say outdoor recreation, especially outside of the metro area does really well all year long.

 

You know, one of the big things we’re excited about for the second year in a row is we have the U.S. Gravel Biking National Championships down in La Crescent, Minnesota. Because apparently in Minnesota, we have the champagne of gravel, according to the professionals. And then we also, in the winter, you know, down in Winona, we have an ice climbing festival, which I know sounds kind of crazy, but it’s awesome.

 

And then, you know, throughout the state, we have other really fun winter festivals, especially when it comes to ice fishing. But I think that the bigger connection- Yeah, the ice fishing thing is really cool. That’s like people put the houses over the ice on the lakes that are frozen and just kind of hang out and fish there.

 

That’s a cool activity. Yeah, and you can do like a tent or you can do a really solid structure. Some people have like glamping trailers almost that have TVs and what have you.

 

So there’s a variety of ways to experience the outdoors, even if you aren’t actually outside. But I think that that’s how we connect with our DMOs pretty well, is we kind of figure out what do you have going on? What’s new and how can we try to route travelers to you? And one of the cool things that we did this year is we sort of subdivided all of our regions. We have five major regions and we split them into 11 micro regions to kind of create more itineraries and build content in a smaller space and really get people into one place as a hub and then move them around in a few different counties.

 

And I think that that’s been really helpful in sort of helping us drive marketing to the areas that maybe need it more than others, but also just disbursement. Again, you’ve got those big cities, North Shore in Minnesota is hugely popular. That’s Duluth kind of up through Grand Marais on the North Shore of Lake Superior.

 

Gosh, we have to get people out to more places. And I think festivals and events is one way to do that. But another way is really just to kind of create those itineraries and move people around so that when they’re coming here, they’re busy, they’ve got things to do, they’ve got restaurants to visit, and then they’ve got destinations that kind of have all of the elements of a great vacation.

 

I love it. And one place that I’ve got to get to because I have a child of the seventies and I’ve not been to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and Tourist Center out in Walnut Grove. For those of you who don’t know, Little House on the Prairie, huge TV show in the seventies and eighties.

 

So that’s pretty cool. And it’s coming back. Netflix is bringing it back.

 

No, are you serious? That’s really awesome. We’re really excited. It was unfortunately not- Based on the books themselves, not like the spirit of Michael Landon’s production, right? I think that’s right.

 

But they did not, unfortunately they did not film it here for whatever reason. I think it was probably filmed in Canada. I was about to say they probably did it in Vancouver.

 

Southwest Minnesota, Walnut Grove, Marshall, that whole area, they are super excited. We’re super excited. It really is a great opportunity.

 

They’re kind of exploring some new themes for Little House on the Prairie. They’re talking a little bit more about our indigenous people as well, which I think is really important. So yeah, it’s gonna bring back a lot of people.

 

It has that nostalgia moment, but we’re thrilled about it. Also part of Explore Minnesota is Explore Minnesota Film, which we got a couple of years ago. And it’s another great tourism vehicle.

 

I mentioned that the Top Fargo, but Mighty Ducks is one of my personal favorites as a child of the 90s. I love it. I love to be able to be like, and that’s where that was filmed, and that’s where that scene was filmed.

 

And it’s a great opportunity for us to kind of promote Minnesota in a whole other way too. What do you like most about being executive director? I think one of the coolest parts of my job is being able to travel somewhere, try something new all the time, right? Hearing new stories. There’s always somewhere new to discover that I’ve never heard of before or haven’t been to yet.

 

And so I think constantly building my own Minnesota bucket list has been really fun, but also just the people, meeting more and more people throughout the state and hearing their stories of whether they started this really unique business or they’re doing some really cool project in their community. I think that that’s just what makes it so special. I’m just constantly learning something new and I never get bored.

 

And even when the job can be especially challenging, there’s still a silver lining at the end of it. So I love that. I totally know where you’re coming from because there are days that you’re like, ah, but you’re still super thankful that you get to meet all these great people and it’s varied every single day.

 

So I’m not gonna put you on the spot too much, but give me one example of something recently, I’m not gonna do that trap, what’s your favorite thing, but something recently that sticks out, that made you go, ah, this is cool, go Minnesota. Yeah, so I always like to say one of my most favorite places to visit is the last place I’ve been. It gets me out of trouble.

 

Everyone’s like, what’s your favorite hotel, dude? I can’t, I can’t answer that. It’s not fair. But one of the coolest things that just happened here, and I have not yet had a chance to visit it, but I’ve been tracking it for the last couple months is that Luverne down in Southwestern Minnesota, they have a fun story where they have a nutcracker museum and it has more nutcrackers than, yes, I’m talking about like the thing you see at- Nutcracker, not the music and ballet.

 

Yep, so they have more nutcrackers than they have people in the town. It was a really special collection that was basically given to this museum by a local resident. And so in the spirit of that for the last couple of years, they’ve been doing Christmas in July and having like a nutcracker celebration.

 

And just now, like I think it’s launching within the next two weeks, officially unveiling, they just put up like a 60 to 65 foot giant nutcracker in town to celebrate that museum, really stand out, attract tourists. Supposedly it actually crushes real nuts, which I would love to see. And it’s just one of those things that’s like, this is so Minnesotan.

 

Like we are just, we’re so kind of quirky and fun and we have these big ideas and we make it happen. And that is one of like my favorite most recent stories that we have this summer. So a new tourist attraction in Luverne, Minnesota.

 

I’m pumped about it, honestly. What made you fall in love with the notion of travel in general? You know, I think having been the executive director for the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild before this, you fall in love with the idea that there are people everywhere who want to talk about their community. They want to make their community better.

 

And I think with travel, you get to experience that. You experience pride in place. You get to talk to people who live there and who love living there.

 

And travel just really makes you feel more connected. And of course, you know, depending on who you are and how much money you have, it can bring whole new experiences. But even if you’re just driving, you know, a short distance to find something new, there’s always something to discover.

 

And there are people who work really hard to make that the case. And I think that’s why I’ve really fallen in love is to know that, you know, you go to small towns and somebody opens a brewery or a boutique hotel and they are doing it not because they know they’re gonna make a ton of money. They’re doing it because they love that community and they want to see it succeed.

 

And I think that’s what travel is. It’s an opportunity to see that love kind of in real time and out there for everyone. And that’s why I love it.

 

You know, I love going somewhere and trying something new, even if it’s, you know, even if I don’t go very far from my hotel room on a business trip or something, I still try to seek out that special place and everyone has one. That’s awesome. I love it.

 

Lauren, any final thoughts, words, or how about an awesome plug for Explore Minnesota? Well, yeah, of course, exploreminnesota.com is, you know, one of the top places that you can visit to plan all of your summer travel, winter travel, come in the winter. I always tell people, you will be surprised how amazing it is in the winter. But I would say, since we were talking about it so much, the Minnesota State Fair is from August.