The Rural Towns Project Podcast
In the Rural Towns Project Podcast, Dax Jacobson combines his day job as a business professor with his love for the rural American West he grew up in. He talks to the people who are actually trying to make a living in - and to the researchers, artists, and others inspired by - the rural towns of the American West. He hopes to help himself and others understand the past, appreciate the present, and positively impact the future of rural towns and the American West.
The Rural Towns Project Podcast
Bear Lake (Idaho & Utah): Natalie Randall (Executive Director of the Utah Tourism Industry Association) on the Transient Room Tax, Foreign Independent Travelers, Rural Growth Challenges, and All Things Rural Tourism
In this episode, I chat with Natalie Randall, Executive Director of the Utah Tourism Industry Association (UTIA). Natalie and I talk about her interesting background in tourism and economic development and what brought her to her current position. We talk about life in Monticello and the thousands of miles she drives across Utah focusing on the the work of tourism advocacy and education for UTIA. Natalie explains the Transient Room Tax and the debates over how it should be used, the Tourism Marketing Performance Fund, Foreign Independent Travelers, and the Red Emerald Initiative (an extension of Utah’s Mighty 5 campaign). We talk about the growth in rural tourism in Utah, rural tourism challenges and opportunities, rural main streets, and the loss of rural youth to Utah’s cities. Natalie explains how her rancher father-in-law serves as sounding board and reality check for rural issues. We talk about Natalie’s favorite stretch of Utah highway and end, as always, with the Road Trip Music Question.
If you want to find out more about me or the Rural Towns Project, please go to https://www.ruraltownsproject.com/
Podcast music: “A Happy Day” by codemusic, http://www.jamendo.com, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/