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Transcript

PILOT EPISODE: Who the HECK! is Experience Olympia & Beyond? · Talk Thurston to Me

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Talk Thurston to Me, a podcast about what's new, newsworthy, and next in Thurston County.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I am Shauna Stewart, CEO of Experience Olympia and Beyond.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if your first thought was, wait, aren't you the tourism people?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are in fact the tourism people.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if you think that means all we do is tell people where to stay and hand out visitor guides, I have some news for you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tourism touches a surprising amount of what happens in our community: restaurants, breweries, farms, museums, trails, festivals, hotels, sports, arts and culture, downtowns, waterfronts, small business, big investments, and most importantly, people.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we created Talk Thurston to me, because there is a lot of things happening across Thurston County and a lot of interesting people making them happen.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We really want you to know about them so you can share them with your friends and family and visitors.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So who is Experience Olympia and Beyond really?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are the destination marketing organization for Thurston County, and our job is to help people discover this place.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We market Thurston County as a destination.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We work to bring meetings, sporting events, and groups here.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We support tourism businesses and develop experiences that give people reasons to visit and my favorite reasons to stay a little bit longer.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But increasingly, our work is also about something so much bigger.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the place that we're building together because the things that make a place great to visit are often the same things that make it a great place to live.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: A vibrant downtown, great restaurants, trails, and parks, arts and culture, interesting local businesses, events that bring people together, places where you can take your family when they come to town and say, wait, have you seen this?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the things that really matter to visitors, but they matter to all of us too, and that's really a big part of why we wanted to start this podcast.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something we've noticed.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is a lot happening here in Thurston County, and sometimes we don't know about it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's opening a great new business, someone else is restoring a beloved community landmark, while someone else is creating a new festival.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have people who are growing something, building something, preserving something, or trying something nobody has ever tried before.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And unless you know the right person or see the right social media posts, you might completely miss it.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we really want to help connect those dots.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Talk Thurston to me is our chance to sit down with the people behind the places, businesses, attractions, events, and ideas shaping Thurston County.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're going to talk about something that's been here for a hundred years or millions of years in some cases.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then we're going to talk about something opening next Tuesday.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to introduce you to entrepreneurs, artists, community leaders, farmers, makers, historians, hospitality professionals, and probably a few people who are difficult to put into any category at all, which I love.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, we will talk about tourism and the visitor experience, but really we're going to be talking about Thurston County itself.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the big questions you might be asking is why should you listen to us?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fair question, because we get to have a pretty unusual job.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Every day our team is talking with people all over Thurston County.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking to hoteliers about who's coming to town, with restaurants and attractions about what they're seeing.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're working with cities and community partners.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're hearing about new developments and helping promote events.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're learning about businesses and experiences before many people even know they exist.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we're constantly looking at Thurston County through the eyes of someone discovering it for the very first time.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That gives us a pretty interesting vantage point.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: We get to see this place from a lot of different pieces.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But this podcast is really our opportunity to bring some of those pieces together and share the stories behind them.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're not just collecting this information and sharing them with just the visitors who are coming from out of town, but we get to share them with you.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You, the people who are interacting with visitors every single day, and maybe love Thurston County and this place that we get to call home as much as we do.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's also another reason to tune in.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to become really good at talking about Thurston County because here's the secret.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, our team is small, it's mighty, but it becomes a lot bigger when you are part of our marketing team.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you may not be on our payroll, and please don't send me an invoice.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But every time someone asks you, what's there to do around here?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where should we eat?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've got family coming to town.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where should I take them?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening out there?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You become a destination ambassador, and we'd like to give you good answers that you can feel confident about in answering these questions.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to know the stories.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to discover the places you haven't visited yet, and we want you to meet the people doing interesting work here.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe occasionally, we want you to hear something on the podcast and think, I had no idea that that was happening here because curiosity is really good for our community, and so is pride.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So what's coming?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna bring you a conversation about Thurston County, we're gonna go behind the scenes at familiar places, but also introduce you to the people you've probably haven't met yet.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna explore what's changing, celebrate what's working, and we're gonna ask what's coming next.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Some conversations will be fun, some will be a little nerdy, and some might surprise you, but hopefully every episode leaves you knowing something about Thurston County that you didn't know 20 minutes earlier.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because Thurston County isn't just a place that people pass through on their way to somewhere else.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are stories here, really good ones, and we are so excited to tell them.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Shauna Stewart.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is Talk Thurston to me, and I think it's about time you got to know Thurston County a little bit better.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the conversation.