- This is a production of SDPD.

South Dakota is positioning itself to be one of the top 10 desired tourist destinations in the country.

That doesn't just mean creating attractions with wide ranging appeal.

It also means fostering a high class workforce in hospitality and other related fields.

You know, the saying, great places, great faces.

We meet some of the great faces who support the state's tourism industry.

On tonight's South Dakota Focus, - South Dakota Focus is made possible with help from our members, thank you.

And by Black Hills State University and Cody, Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park.

- In 2024, the South Dakota Tourism industry supported more than 58,000 jobs.

That's one in 11 jobs in the state.

According to the Department of Tourism, the head of that department, and perhaps the industry's biggest cheerleader, is Jim Hagen.

Hagen served as the Secretary of Tourism and State Development during the Rounds administration before tourism had its own department and state government.

In 2006, he became the first national campaign director for the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.

Hagen returned to state government when Governor Dennis Daugaard appointed him, secretary of the Department of Tourism.

It's a role he's held for the last 14 years, - And it's gone by like that.

And we have, we've seen so many changes in in that timeframe.

When I first took the job, I had a couple goals in mind.

One was to really elevate South Dakota and the national tourism conversation to really put our flag down, you know, on the tourism map domestically and internationally, globally.

We wanted to, I wanted to grow our brand, grow our presence around the country, grow our marketing platforms, be on a lot more platforms, expanded to new major markets, and we have like Dallas and Chicago and Kansas City.

And so it's really been a fun, fun decade plus of, of seeing tourism grow, seeing the visitation numbers grow, seeing the spending numbers grow from visitors, just the economic impact on the state as a whole.

On the state's GDP, - Each year, South Dakota tourism sets a new record.

Hagen shares an aspiration that guides the department strategies.

- We really want to become a top 10 destination.

Now that doesn't mean attracting the, you know, a top 10 number of visitors, but it means being one of the top 10 most desired vacation destinations in the country.

And that's really what's motivating us now.

And we're just on the cusp of completing a three year strategic plan.

When that ends, at the end of 2025, we'll take a little bit of a breather 'cause we've been on a roller coaster with, with our work that we, we'll really keep that goal of becoming a top 10 most desired vacation destination front and center.

That'll be our North Star.

- That's because Hagen sees tourism as more than a one-time visit.

He recognizes the way travel can capture the imagination, and sees the connection between tourism and so many other local industries.

- We call it the halo effect.

So what that means is tourism literally will affect everything in this state, but especially economic development.

And, you know, you hear so many stories of people who said, you know what?

I visited a destination and let's just take South Dakota.

I visited South Dakota with no intention but just to visit.

And while I was there, I was just struck, you know, I was struck by the beauty, I was struck by the friend, friendliness of the people, the landscapes, just the aura of the whole state.

And it made me stop and think, wow, what would it be like to actually live here?

What would it be like to maybe buy a vacation home here?

What, what could it be like to start a business here?

Or if I'm a business owner, what might it be like to expand my business?

Or what if my kids were to go to school here?

K-12, what if my kids were to go to higher education here?

What if I were to retire here?

Now we hear those stories all the time.

And so we call tourism the front door to economic development.

We inspire them to get to the state, to experience all that makes us so special.

And then we open that front door and let them walk through and to, to dream about what could be.

- You could say the tourism department is a sort of marketing arm for the state of South Dakota to the rest of the nation, but that's far from its only function.

The department offers trainings and other resources for frontline industry workers rounded out by the Annual Governor's Tourism Conference during the legislative session in Pier, - Our tourism conference.

A lot of your viewers may not know, has now grown into one of the largest tourism conferences in the country, depending on the year, fourth, fifth, sixth largest tourism conference in the whole United States.

- In other words, if you try to find a hotel room in Pier during the third week of January, good luck.

Hundreds of hospitality workers, marketing professionals, business owners and economic development experts gather to learn from other industry leaders.

Attendees learn about emerging trends in social media, best practices for making tourism sites accessible and more during the breakout sessions, plus dozens of vendors visit with folks from around the state throughout each day.

There are some long time attendees like Travis Pearson with Deadwood Alive, or should I say Wild Bill Hickok.

- I can't speak for everybody, but we always have a good time while we're here.

We get to meet up with a lot of first timers and stuff.

We've been coming here for like 15 years, so it's old hat for us, but we enjoy it.

Every year we come out and promote Deadwood and you know, like I said, Deadwood promotes itself, but it's, it's nice to connect.

- The conference is also a chance for Secretary Hagen to present an industry update.

The presentation leads up to a reveal of statistics from the previous year.

- I'm happy to say it was in a historic 2024 last year.

We welcomed a record 14.9 million visitors who spent a whopping $5.09 billion.

Yeah, get ourselves a - Hand.

This marks the first year visitor spending has broken $5 billion.

Visitors spend that money on food accommodations, and of course, a few souvenirs.

That's a market this local artist is hoping to tap.

This is Jason Reuter.

He spent 25 years in local theater, including time as the operations manager for the Black Hills Playhouse.

Now he runs against the Grain, a custom woodworking business.

He runs out of his home in Rapid City.

Breaking into the tourism industry is a relatively new venture for him.

- A lot of the success that I've experienced has been with Lake Maps, which show the bathymetric depths, or I do pieces of Sylvan Lake or of Black Elk Peak.

And those are really popular with the local people.

But tourists, it's, it's, it almost feels too specific for them.

So that's why this year I went with Buffalo and Pheasant and Prairie Pasque, you know, things that really represent South Dakota, but don't get down too much into the details.

And it's also gotta be small enough and cheap enough to pack.

So I've always gotta keep that in mind too.

- This was his second year at the Tourism conference.

Like so many others, he was hoping to network and make future business connections.

- I, I hate to boil it down, but it really was hoping to make a profit and, and really just hoping to meet other people in the industry who are responsible for filling gift shops and who also share the same passion of, of South Dakota and, and what it represented.

- That passion is clear through the images Reuter chooses for his pieces, but it's a passion that took some time to develop.

- So I'm originally from New Jersey, and a weird string of circumstances led me to going to the University of South Dakota to study theater.

And to be honest with you, for the first three years I was trying to plot my escape and get back to the East Coast.

And it wasn't until over Easter Breaks and friends and I took a road trip out here to the hills.

They had all been at the Playhouse and they were so excited to share it with me.

And then they took me out there and it was gorgeous.

And, and that summer I came out to work as a general technician.

The hills are, I describe them as the grandeur of the Rockies, but the size of the Appalachians.

There's something magical about the hills out here.

I have yet to meet anybody, not have the hills sink its claws into them.

But then when I went back to Vermilion, then I started to see the other beauty of South Dakota.

Vermilion is a beautiful area.

The the, the river bluffs there.

And you really have to learn to appreciate the color brown because during the winter months, everything turns brown.

And it's not until you slow down and start looking around, you see those shades of brown and the different ways that that beauty shines through.

My wife has family over in the middle of the state, and so we go over there frequently, and I love the excuse to get out into the prairie.

South Dakota is just so unique, and coming from the East coast, we didn't have anything even remotely like it.

- Like his passion for South Dakota landscapes.

Reuter's craft has developed over time as he adapts his pieces to a travel sized scale with computer imaging and laser cutting.

He sees emerging technology as new tools for his art.

- So for this conference, I created these, I called them continuous line sculptures.

Now my wife had just got a new job.

She just got a new office and she wanted some new artwork because she's gonna be on a lot of Zoom calls, and she wanted something pretty behind her.

She loves those drawings where the artist puts pen to paper, draws a beautiful picture, and then it's all one line.

So I started looking into things like that.

Now, I'm not a very skilled drawer by any stretch.

She's certainly much better at it than I am.

But I was able to lean on AI chat.

GBT does this image generation, and I was able to say, can you create a continuous line drawing of a, a buffalo, of a pheasant?

So ChatGPT will create the image and then I'll export the image into Illustrator Adobe Illustrator.

I'd have to work it to, for, for these projects, for these continuous line sculptures.

I had to make sure that all of the lines were actually connected so that when it went to the laser and was cut out, it's all a single piece of wood.

- From there, he exports the file to the program that operates a laser cutter.

- And you've gotta set what's the power of the laser, what's the speed of the laser?

Does it have high compressed air coming out of the nozzle after it's been cut out?

The laser scorches a lot of the wood, so I have to make sure that it's cleaned up so that I take it out to the shop, sand it down, everything gets a coat of varnish, but it will get colored first.

- He's perfected the coloring and wood staining process over time too.

And of course, the best packaging for safe travel.

- So computer, computer, computer, laser, carpentry, shop - Reuter says most gift shops don't start placing their orders until about March.

So it'll be a while before he knows for sure how successful his trip to the tourism conference really was.

But expanding to a new clientele has presented a new artistic challenge.

- What's the most challenging is making sure that right, it needs to be small, it needs to be affordable, but for me it also needs to have artistic integrity.

It has to be worth looking at, and it's all, it also has to be worth me doing.

I don't wanna, for example, I I I very rarely do anything.

Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore is on every t-shirt.

It's on every coaster, it's on every booklet.

There's plenty of Mount Rushmore.

But when I do Mount Rushmore, it's gotta be beautiful in a way that these other things haven't been.

I do a 3D scape where I use thinner, thin slabs of wood for the background that that becomes the sky, the grains become clouds in the sky.

If I'm lucky, I've got a knot that can become the sun.

So making it affordable, making it small enough, but also make imbuing it with enough artistic integrity that, that I want to do it.

I I don't want to just crank out a bunch of little Mount Rushmores.

I will, if I have to, somebody's paying, I'll do it.

But, but yeah, the challenge is, is taking it from i I do sometimes such grandiose pieces.

And to find how to do that simply enough and small enough and, and quickly and cheaply enough that I'm still satisfied, the customer is satisfied and the piece itself is satisfied.

- A whole lot of time and thought goes into customer satisfaction.

That's true across all facets of the tourism industry.

And that's why the organizers of the yearly Tourism conference set time aside to recognize the especially high achieving members of their industry.

The Tourism Awards Night Gala is the grand finale of the annual conference.

Among the accolades is an award named for Ruth Ziolkowski, who served as CEO of Crazy Horse Memorial for more than 30 years after the death of her husband and Lead Mountain Carver Korzcak Ziolkowski, the Ruth Ziolkowski outstanding Hospitality customer service award goes to a representative from each of the four tourism regions of the state.

This year's winner for Southeast South Dakota is Phil Zea from the Hotel on Phillips in Sioux Falls.

- Well, I thank you.

This was unexpected.

I was told to be here just to represent our hotel.

It's a, it's a big deal for, for me and my staff, my hotel, we're kind of the first step when people are coming west.

And so it's fun for me when I find out from families that they are heading out to the Black Hills.

Oh God, you can't, you gotta see this, you gotta see this.

So it's a chance for me to pump up all the places along the way that they're gonna be seen.

So thank you.

Thank you so much for this.

- Zea's first experience with hospitality was as a busboy at a hotel in Lead in the nineties, but he was born and raised in Sioux Falls.

He remembers when this historic building on the corner of Ninth Street and Phillips Avenue was still a functioning bank after a career in sales.

He's now the longest tenured employee of the Hotel on Phillips.

It opened for its first guests in 2019.

- 90 Rooms with 18 different themes.

A lobby that you only see in movies to see people's reaction when I tell 'em, say, well, the elevator's this way, the bar's this way.

And they look and see the vault.

You go through the vault door.

I said, yep, you go through.

I mean, it's just a whole nother level of excitement for people.

This is something special here.

This is not just a regular hotel or a place to stay.

You can stay anywhere in Sioux Falls, but if you want an experience, you're coming here to stay.

So for me, it's a, I enjoy going over and talking to people in front of the vault and telling them about the history of the vault and things that I found out about the vault with other guests.

Knowing that the vault door is a three key system, that three different people in the bank would have to have a key to set the timer on it.

And if the timer didn't work right, and it didn't open Monday morning, but Tuesday morning, this is the days before ATMs.

So if the bank if didn't open, you couldn't withdraw money today, you'd have to come back tomorrow.

So those little things, it's, it's fun to pass those on.

The story of John Dillinger coming into this bank to wanna rob it back in the 1930s, taking a look at the vault door and saying, I can't do it.

So he went up the street one block and robbed that bank that you could just see the light bulb go off in there.

And there's, and they become more intrigued and it, it, it helps me sell the place to be able to say, now you gotta come back and stay here.

And more times than not, you bet we'll be back.

- The vault also plays a part in another story that demonstrates how Phil uses humor to deescalate certain situations.

- We were in open a couple weeks and I'm at the front desk by myself on a Friday and I hear giggling by the vault door.

Well, that's a 16 ton door.

It's still, once you get it moving, it still moves.

Like it was installed yesterday, but there were two guys over there, one's 6'4 the other one's 6'5.

I'm 5'9.

I got no business talking to 'em at all.

So, okay, I'm, and I could tell that they'd been drinking in the bar.

How am I going to stop them from pushing the vault door?

Because if somebody gets their finger in the way, it's it.

Yeah.

So, okay, how do I tactfully go about this?

So I reached over the handset at the front desk and I picked it up and I held it in the air and I said, Hey.

And they both turned and looked at me.

I said, I got your mom on the phone.

She says, stop touching stuff.

And I hung it up.

They pushed the vault door back and ran into the bar like a couple third graders.

Oh my God, it was so funny.

I'm like, okay, there's my go to.

So, so yeah.

- After our interview, Phil Zea leads us on a tour of the different themed rooms.

There's the mural suites featuring historic photographs of downtown Sioux Falls.

There's the Blarney Stone with a view of the Arc of Dreams, gorgeous green, pretty in pink, and several more.

There's a story for almost every detail.

- Those are our do not disturb signs.

- Nice.

- And the neat thing about that and thinking, okay, how unique is it?

I had a guy stay here who was high up in the Marriott chain, and he asked what those were and I said, what's the do not disturb?

He goes, I've stayed all over the world and I've never seen anything like that.

So he bought one.

Oh fun.

- Phil takes pride in offering personalized experiences for guests because the rooms are so unique.

He encourages people to call to make their reservation rather than just booking online.

- Just having our hotel, the ability that we're not owned by a major corporation to where we have the ability to do things that maybe other hotels don't, to where we have a romance package, a champagne package.

Things that people can get extra that are in their room when they arrive, and that's even more special.

So it's the little things I think that we do.

And there are probably other hotels around the area that do 'em as well.

But I think we separate ourselves by, by creating a level of, of excitement and anticipation and fun before they even get here.

Working here in the last five years, I've been extremely fortunate to have families that they stopped here on their way.

They're from the east coast, never seen Mount Rushmore.

So we get to talk about that and all the things they get to see along the way, but then get fortunate enough that that same family is returning that they've gone to the Black Hills, they went out to Wyoming and now they're on their way back.

The trip is over.

And to ask them about how their experience was, how were their bad lands, you know, it's amazing just to see their faces light up.

That, that to me is to where we have the ability here in Sioux Falls to, to set the stage for those travelers that are going west.

And I'd like to think that other hotels and their front desk staff is doing that.

I hope so.

You know, at least for us, that's a big deal for me and I would like my staff to, to do that as well.

- That same enthusiasm for sharing.

South Dakota spreads across the state to the KOA campground in Hot Springs.

This is a second tourism business for Thad and Nicole Weiss.

They also run a motel an hour north in Hill City.

The campground is part of a lifelong dream for Thad.

- Really.

It started, so back in high school, you know, I grew up in Hill City and there was a campground outside of Hill City that I started working at in high school.

And I worked through high school and through kind of later years after high school.

And I just always knew that that was something that I wanted to do.

It was to own a campground or, or something in that, in that business.

- A few years ago, the Weiss family took the leap.

They leveraged their house to buy the Spring Creek Inn in Hill City.

That was in the spring of 2020.

- Those first few months, every phone call was basically a cancellation.

And things were, you know, you didn't even want to answer the phone at that point.

And, but, you know, once things were announced that, hey, we're gonna stay open, we're not closing down Mount Rushmore, we're not closing down Custer State Park.

Once those things were kind of announced about mid-June, people started showing up and coming in and things kind of took off from there.

We were able to actually close on, on June 15th, so about a month and a half after what we were supposed to close on.

But things after that kind of were just fine, you know, it was still a quiet year, but at least things, you know, at least we made it through the initial parts.

- The decision to remain open for business and highlight the state's outdoor attractions helps stabilize a key industry In a very unstable time, though not without controversy, the tourism department posted regular updates and online resources for businesses on safety precautions.

The Weiss family got some financial help from the small business administration.

It was a trial by fire during an already big adjustment for them and their three kids.

- The kids enjoy working the businesses and helping us with 'em.

They enjoy meeting people.

They definitely still miss our old house and they miss that.

We are really tied to the hills in the summer.

You know, we used to take the traditional family vacations each summer, go somewhere, you know, in the United States.

And, and so that changed forum and it changed with having people come in and out, in and out of our house, basically.

- But the kids have taken it in stride and all three help their parents run the two businesses.

Giving guests a experience is just as important to the Weiss family as it is to any other host across the state.

- And it's just so much more than working the desk.

Like when it's a small ma and pa hotel, like you have to have that customer service and you have to like, put like your heart into meeting all the guests and making it more than just a, a one night, you know, come and go because they can get that anywhere.

And a mom and pop place is gonna be a little bit more dated and it's gonna, you know, have things that we're constantly working on.

And so we have to really step up the customer service part.

- The challenges have come with some fun opportunities too, like deciding how to stock the campground store or planning special events in summertime.

- I love it.

There's so many different things you can do with a campground as far as cabins and recreation and barbecues and music.

And it just opens up a whole nother avenue of things that we're able to do, you know, in this business.

And, you know, it's, it's just a lot of fun with the, the directions you can go and, and ideas that you can have.

And - Nicole decided to leave her job as early learning director at the Rapid City YMCA to work the family businesses full time.

It's another move that took courage, especially after the uncertain start five years ago.

- You know, there was probably a little stress with that too.

I suppose - That's a different stress.

It's definitely more workable between the two places.

But obviously that was a huge step.

You know, I was in my career for 21 years and with the organization I left for 13 and having that solid paycheck every, you know, two weeks was a hard thing to change up.

And it seems to be working out, but we're, it's still a little scary.

- But the chance to build something off their passion for South Dakota and to offer their kids a piece of that future makes the risks worth it in a place like the Black Hills with the tourism industry, having that family business, I mean, that's genera that could be generational, - Right?

Right.

It's setting right.

Yeah.

So like when Thad makes a decision, not that he did it on his own, but like when he made a decision that when we buy this house, like we're gonna buy it for equity.

Like yeah, we're setting up potentially like our kids and potentially our grandkids and, and starting something where we both worked, worked our tails off, coming up and trying to figure out what a path our lives were gonna go on.

And, and so that is really the ultimate goal is to pass that on, to pass something on to the kids where - Even if it's, you know, even if it's something where, you know, at some point we sell at least we'll have the ability to help them if they wanna do their own thing and, and something like that.

So it's, it's definitely something that we think about when it comes to, to the businesses and if we want to do more or if we want to hang on and to what we got and or, you know, those things.

So it's a big part of it thinking you know, about them and, and making those decisions for the future too.

So - The tourism industry touches many parts of South Dakota life.

Like Secretary Hagen said, it's a halo effect.

- We inspire them to get to the state, to experience all that makes us so special.

And then we open that front door and let them walk through and to, to dream about what could be.

- And visitors aren't the only ones.

Dreaming - The dream was always the campground.

And so I never stopped looking.

I was always keeping my eye out, - Dreaming and learning about people and the place we call home, - What's changed is recognizing what I love about the hills isn't necessarily what the tourist loves about the Hills.

I love Buzzard's Roost.

I love how vast it feels, but it's very hard to encompass that into something for a tourist.

I I certainly think that they appreciate the, the vastness of South Dakota, but they will remember the snippets, they'll remember the Buffalo herd, they'll remember Mount Rushmore, they'll remember the Game Lodge, who knows?

So I have had to shift my focus from the things that I love to trying to think about what, what are they going to love?

What are they going to walk away loving?

And, and it's kind of a fun exercise because you try to get back to the first times you were here in the hills and what did you feel and what did you experience and what took your breath away the first time.