Santiago Corrada: The Art and Heart of Tampa's Transformation

Join us for a special four-year reunion episode as host Stephen Ekstrom reconnects with Santiago Corrada, President and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay. In this engaging discussion, Santiago shares his visionary approach to marketing a vibrant city, moving beyond conventional tourism to foster sustainable community growth. Discover how Tampa Bay has transformed over the years through innovative campaigns, local engagement, and powerful collaborations. Whether you're a travel enthusiast or a city dweller, this episode offers deep insights into building a successful, inclusive urban destination. Don't miss this chance to learn from one of the pioneers in city marketing!

Business Class is brought to you by Learn Tourism, the nonprofit academy - harnessing the power of science, business psychology and adult education to advance the tourism industry and build sustainable economies. Learn how to engage your community, win over stakeholders and get more visitors at learntourism.org. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Good morning, kind sir. Since the last time you and I talked, I was in a vein. And I'm now in a fancy bus. It looks a little bit blurry, but it looks really cool. I designed it after your office. You've got the lacquer cabinets. Yeah. Now, those paintings behind you were new, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yes. So uh two of them are from one of our graffiti artists. I don't know if you can see. There you go. The Gator one and the flamingo is a graffiti artist in town called Dylan Perry. We actually took him recently to Mexico City for a mission where he partnered with a uh a muralist uh from Mexico City who is actually doing a mural on the entire border wall. He says it's a lifetime project because it's so long. And he's got all these artists that come up with templates and they put stuff on the wall. Um, so we just did a huge mural in Mexico City called the Meeting of Two Currents. And it was Mexico City, Tampa with the golf in between. Uh and the one in the middle is a gentleman who is uh an incredible musician who also paints, and he wanted to do something in our brand colors and give it to me. Uh, and he's phenomenal. He used to play with some of the great jazz uh players here in Tampa when Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, that group would come through Tampa. He's older, so he used to play with them. He's incredible. You could give him any topic, throw him on stage with a drum or uh an instrument, and he will make up a song at the moment about whatever you've given him to talk about, which is incredible. I've seen him do it on Juneteenth. We were celebrating a lifetime achievement for a great dancer in town. He just got up and started drumming about this guy and talking. And it's like the guy's life story and music, like within minutes of him getting on, it's he's incredible. He's like you talk about really gifted people. So he uh he gave me that one over the holidays this past Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

I get in awe of people who have that artistic talent, you know, you can create something from nothing, and it's just be beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I mean, I mean, you give him a wooden box and he starts banging and he comes up with a song. I've seen him do it like a half a dozen times already, and I'm like, how do you do that, Fred? You're killing me. How do you do that? I don't know. It just comes to me and I just can sing it out and I can play it out, and I'm like, oh my God. It's a gift. It's it's a gift. I did a uh TED talk with him, and he did the same thing. He got on stage and he just started doing it. I'm like, you're killing me, man. You're just too much. You're too much. Santiago Carrata, the president's CEO with Visit Tampa Bay, uh, been in this seat here uh with this great team for almost 13 years, just in a few weeks here.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

We last talked about four years ago. Yeah. What has changed most in those four years?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Well, we change every day around here. I mean, we we bring in people a year later and they say, wow, that wasn't there, this wasn't here. You know, when we talked, we were about the brand and you know, a treasure awaits and you know, a treasure worth discovering, unlocked Tampa Bay. I think we've been unlocked. I think people now understand a little bit about Tampa, know where we are, what we're all about. And there's an incredible amount of interest. Uh, a couple of years ago, Time magazine named uh Tampa one of the 50 greatest places on earth. And there weren't that many in the U.S., none were cities. So it was a city. Uh think Grand Canyon, think some of these natural attributes that great places have that were mentioned. The city of Tampa was one of the greatest places on earth a few years ago. So I think we've done a very decent job of promoting marketing, creating an image, a brand that resonates. That interest is not just about tourism. We are uh infrastructure, obviously, transportation, transit are a major headache for lots of big cities in the country, and that's something we're we're grappling with and continue to grapple with. But as far as the economic impact of what we've done, the brand recognition, there was an article in Forbes a few years ago, and it was interesting for the uh New York Times. It was a big periodical uh that said, you know, what's happened in Tampa? And it it was all about Tampa, and they said two things, two real things uh have really moved the city forward, and that's been private investment, and the second was marketing. And we're in, we're the marketers, right? We're the ones who talk about this place. So it was nice that someone was picking up that you you need to market a place. And I've always said it, you could be the greatest place on earth. No one knows who you are. It doesn't matter. No one really understands. So this notion of build it and they will come, I would say build it, market it, and they might come. Not you build it and they will come. So I think we're we're way uh past where we were four years ago. We've seen major development here with Water Street, downtown, midtown, gas works. Everywhere you look, there's a crane. We have a Pendry under construction, a whole trunk under construction. The biggest tower in Tampa, one Tampa is under construction. So there's a lot going on here, which is exciting to see.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

What's changed in your marketing approach from sticking with a brand that was working and is going to work to now being in a place where it is working, it has worked.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

It's being creative with the brand, right? We we have a number of different campaigns, but they're always under the unlocked Tampa Bay treasure awaits. For example, just this summer, we did a campaign with dog influencers. A lot of us love dogs. I got two of them. We travel with our dogs, we spoil our dogs. So we did the dog on days of summer, visit Tampa Bay. And so we had these dog influencers all over town talking about all the dog-friendly places we. So it's still the unlock Tampa Bay, visit Tampa Bay, but the the campaign appeals to a different audience, but still under that same umbrella. So we'll never change the logo, we'll never change the brand colors, but our campaigns will be different. We we just launched a major campaign after doing some research that people's attitudes and perceptions of Tampa before a visit and after a visit were dramatically different. So our newest campaign is going, you'll know the real tantum, right? Because we've indexed things like peaceful and stress-free and adventurous and dynamic. People have a different perception of Tampa before they came here. But after they left, those indexes were off the chart. And so this notion of this play on going, you'll know, and the calls to action have really been cool to see people, you know, how it appeals to people.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

There's a slight shift in what you're marking and what you're presenting from the city as a whole to a collection of experiences, a collection of neighborhoods, the collection of small moments and engagements.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Absolutely. You're absolutely right. And it continues to work well for us. I I can't tell you our numbers. I just looked at our average, our our average occupancy for the month of February was 82.5% occupancy countywide. When you put that in layman's terms, over eight out of every 10 rooms are occupied every day in February in Hillsborough County, Florida. And some days over 90 plus percent. So uh those numbers are higher. We've seen marches even higher than that. So when you look at that, the success of that, and you look at groups that are booking with us because they want to be here and are willing to wait because we have no space to 2038. The Tampa thing is phenomenal. Uh, the Tampa thing is a success story that I think is worth telling. What's keeping you up at night? At my age, you sleep pretty soundly. Uh, I can tell you that the mental fatigue of the day, and that you it's lights out, right? 9 p.m., it's lights out. You may wake up in the middle of the night and try to push some things out of your mind. The things that really keep me up at night are things that I can't control. And how you then uh flex to those things you can't control, right? Geopolitical things, uh economic things, mother nature, right? It's about preparation, but I go back to 2020. Who predicted COVID and who predicted how to react to COVID? You know, it hit us. It was a blind side. February 2020, our occupancy was like it is now, almost 90%, 80s, right? March, we dropped to 50. April, we dropped down to 23%. Who was prepared for that, right? Who was prepared for a storm to take an immediate right turn or a left turn and devastate your infrastructure? Uh, to me, it's more about how you respond. You've got all these great plans, but how you respond to that adversity, I think, is the caliber of the organization, the caliber of the person. You know, when you get to my age, you know that uh you can't control a lot of things, but you can control how you react to a lot of things. And that's where I kind of keep grounded with my spirituality, my Christianity. I can't control everything, uh, but I can certainly control how I behave in relationship to those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

A few of the conversations that I've had recently have talked about not the value visitor, but the values visitor. You know, what are the values that you hope your future visitor carries with them to your destination?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

We really turned away from just the actual economic impact, right? Everybody's so focused on the room nights and the tourism collection. We talk about other things, right? We talk about what those visitors do for our community as far as quality of life. And and we started a program on the convention side, our convention sales side called Meeting the Moment. And that's to honor and recognize groups that come into town and beyond the economic impact, they support Habitat for Humanity. They support feeding Tampa Bay, they plant mangroves, they do a clean, they bring book bags for children or books, they do something special beyond just being here and having their business meeting and yes, contributing economically, that support of our community and trying to leave the community in a better place than how they found it, which is phenomenal, right? So we talk about visitors pay the sales tax, obviously, but they also pay an education tax in our community that supports teachers when they're in town, that supports infrastructure development for our schools. And boy, does our superintendent now understand that. Boy, does our school board members really understand it now? They're willing for us to adopt programs and to have our partners go into high schools and become mentors and provide internships. So we've really gotten involved in lots of things outside just that tourism lane. We're very involved in uh workforce development with our public school system, with our post-secondary institutions, making sure there's a funnel for the industry. We get involved in social issues like anti-human trafficking campaigns. We get involved in economic development marketing. We were the first in Florida to establish a tourism marketing district. So we're involved in lots of things outside that one marketing and promotions and sales that we see in tourism organizations.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

You mentioned trying not to lose sleep for what you do and understanding what you can control and what you can't. What's the sacrifice that you've made over the last 13 years and was it worth it?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Obviously, you sacrifice time and you sacrifice health. And uh sometimes you don't have time to go see the eye doctor or the dentist or get the checkup because you're either traveling or you're uh busy at home, which I think is an art form, right? I think it's an art form uh to take care of business at home and then be abroad and abroad domestically or internationally. So lots of things suffer when you're trying to keep those things going and then forget about yourself. So, you know, I think sometimes personally you sacrifice health, you sacrifice diet, you sacrifice lots of things because you're so about the business and about your community and making sure that you're a value. I think that's it. Is it worth it? I'm still here. I'm not under the table, I haven't fallen out of the seat, I'm not in the hospital. So is it worth it for now? Yes. Uh, but again, you have to make time for yourself and you have to do those things uh to make yourself whole. I try to have that balance is very difficult to do because of the demands of work. I was once upon a time a high school principal. I was a very different high school principal. I was a young high school principal who did not sit at his desk in his office. And to do that job, I thought you had to be on the floor, feet on the ground, walking around, walking into classrooms, going to basketball games, going to football games, being in the library. You had to be everywhere. And so, you know, that's kind of been my focus as a leader, to be engaged, to be present, and to not be missed. You go to an event out of town for a day, two days, and you come home and you handle your business. And believe it or not, you sacrifice weekends. If you're going to be out of town and you want to be in your office, we're we're in the office. We're not work-from home people here in Tampa. So if I want to be in the office, then maybe I need to travel on a Sunday, be there on a Monday, maybe a Tuesday, and be back in the office on Wednesday. And that takes a toll as well, because you're really trying to make sure that you're present for the industry, either abroad domestically or internationally, but also taking care of business at home. What would you say to a member of your team who was doing the same thing? I'm not of the mindset of do as I say, not as I do. So the last thing I am is a hypocrite. You'll you'll get Santiago all the time. This guy, there's no change, right? In the office, at home, this is who you get. Um, so I would say that in this case, don't do as I do. I tell my team all the time, family is important, balance is important. Take care of your health, take care of your family's health. Happiness at home means happiness at the workplace. So I tell that all the time. Uh, we're working the office, but we have a lot of flexibility, right? If you have a child that's sick at home and you can work from home today, stay home, right? If you have a delivery at the house and you don't have anything in person, you work from home. So we have that flexibility here, especially since some of our colleagues went completely work from home or partially work from home. We've never done that. We're downtown Tampa and during COVID, we had to leave March of 2020. We were told we're shutting down. And our COO came to me and said, Hey, what are you thinking? And I said, Well, we're very mobile, so that's not a problem. We can pick up and everything's gonna be fine because we've invested in technology. But out of sight, out of mind, and for me, there's an ethical compass as well. And if the hotel folks have to be frontline during COVID, risking their health, and they're paying the bills over here, whether we could do it at home or not is not the issue for me. So she said, Well, what do you think? And I said, Well, July 2020, we're back in the office. I said, after July 4th, 2020, I want to have a physical presence in the office, uh, at least four days out of the week. And we did that with hybrid teams and everything through January of 21. Then January 21. We had a Super Bowl coming in 21. We had WrestleMania coming in 21 early in the year. Said, now we're all back in the office. Five days. So from January 21, my friend, we have been in the office five days a week. And so I think that also gets you a lot of credibility with the people who fund you. That they know, listen, they could pretty much do a lot of this from home, but they're not doing it from home because they're in solidarity with us because we're frontline. And you, I'd say, how does someone in housekeeping make a bed from work from home at a hotel? The tourism collection is a big part of our funding. So, in solidarity, we'll do it from the office, we'll be there on the front line with them. Not everybody did that, and and that's okay. What I always say, you know, what's a Tampa thing may not be somebody else's thing, but in Tampa, there are expectations. There are expectations here.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Yeah, it's it's funny. So we're a learning organization first and foremost. I am a professional tourist, I'm on the road every day, traveling and visiting places. Right. Our staff gets learntation days where they can go and learn something and take a class and go study something. If they want to take a certification program, they can go and do it and we'll pay for it. You have to embody and espouse those values that you share with your stakeholders. And our people travel, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

They have to. And so, yeah, it's you know, I'm old, so I get to say a lot of old things here in the office, right? I get a pass, right? So I say, you know what, be a friend before you need a friend. You know, we're relational, we're not transactional. We're we're in the people business. So how do you do that? And there's something to be said about striking a deal over a meeting or after you've hosted someone in person. So there were a lot of factors that played into us having to come back in the office. And we were very successful. I'll be honest with you. We were back to pre-COVID numbers in 21. We were hosting conventions, we were bringing in tourists, we were marketing, we were very clever with our marketing. We're ready whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready, we're ready. And then after that, it was like, it's time, it's time for you to come back. So, you know, an evolution of the marketing message as well as programs to bring conventions to town. We had a hybrid meetings grant program at that time. Uh, if you had an in-person component to your convention, to your gathering, et cetera, we would pay for all your technology. So if part of it was Zoom, part of it was Teens, you needed all the equipment, we would pay for that. We have right now a treasured savings program. If you sign for different need periods to come bring a convention or meeting to town, we'll put down your deposit at the convention center for you. So, you know, it's this creativity of keeping the engine churning, right? Keeping that engine moving that we take very seriously around here. What are most destinations getting wrong these days? Man, you know, I hate to be critical. I mean, and I don't know their circumstance. I've said this often, and I'll and I'll say it again. You got to take care of business at home. The the lure of travel, if you're not here and you don't have a personal relationship with your mayor or your chief of police or your representative at the state level or your senator at the state level because you're in Portland or you're in DC or you're in Toronto or you're in London, things happen at home while you're on the road. And yes, you can get on the phone. It's not the same. It's really not the same. So I would say from a leadership standpoint, we have to figure that out. We have to figure out a balance. And we have to figure it out in our own industry, right? We we put together a lot of events. I mean, I could probably be gone every week from here if I wanted to. Between all the organizations that we support, we're a part of the missions, the shows. You could fill up an entire calendar year. And I think you have to pick and choose, and I think you have to have home, is the most important thing. So you have to take care of the home business before you're doing all these things. So I would say that sometimes we're not very good at highlighting positive attributes and trying to overcome some of the negative attributes of a destination. So you see that a lot. It's it's interesting that you're seeing now some destinations focus on the perception of the destination to lure travelers. And I always say there has to be some truth in advertising, right? So you got to clean up the mess and then talk about why it's a great place to visit. And I think cleaning up the mess is also part of our responsibility. If I'm driving around this town and I see graffiti somewhere, I'm calling somebody. I'm saying, hey, on the off-rank to our historic district, there's a bunch of graffiti and a bunch of trash. I'm not telling people to come into this district if it looks like this. They know who to call. I can pick up the phone and say, Well, I know to call Jeff about this. I'm gonna call Jeff, or I'm gonna call Sam and say, hey, get a cleanup crew out here. This place looks like crap. And so it's part of our responsibility also to take care of that situation uh when we're at home because we're marketing the place. So you got to try to make sure that you're marketing a place that people want to come to. And when they come here, their perception changes in a positive and not in a negative, like, wow, I came there and it was terrible.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

I'll never go back. So just a couple more questions and then we're gonna be out of time. So, what's something that would surprise people to know that you've changed your mind about in the last four years?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

I change my mind every day. It's interesting. I I always say this is a democracy, and if I'm headed down a path and and you think I'm going off the rail, please stop me. Don't worry. Uh there's no ego thing here going on. Tell me, because I've done when I've been a right hand to a mayor and I've been in an administration for a long time, we have a new mayor, the mayor comes up and I say, We tried that, and this was what happened then. You you're you're certainly free to try it again. But these were the outcomes when we did that before. So you may want to think it through. I meet with the team and I say, hey, uh, I don't think this is a great investment. And they'll say, Well, it is because of XYZ. Maybe I don't know enough. And I'll say, You're right, forget about it. The investment is good. So, no, I I am open, very open-minded to change. I love change, not for the sake of change, but for progress and getting better. And I do allow the team to change my mind. And I tell them that all the time, if you think I'm making a mistake or we're going in the wrong direction, please stop. And I think that comes with time and experiences. You know, I was a very, you know, I've said we I was a very young high school principal, and some of the staff had been teaching at that school longer than I'd been alive. Because, you know, when you're a high school teacher, you teach 30 years in high school, and I was in my thirties. And I would say to them, I said, I'm At this. If I'm saying something that's crazy, pull me aside. Santiago, you're nuts. We did that, you know, five years ago. The kids went crazy. We had a riot. It didn't work. No one learned anything. I'm gonna lean on you because you've been here. And I think you have to respect what's been there and how you're going to improve upon it and not be negative or critical about what's happened before you arrive. What did I not ask that you wish I did? You've asked a lot of uh deeper questions. And it's funny because you had asked one about a terrible mistake that I'd made in the last year. And I asked some people today, I said, you know, I've got this interview today. What do you think has been a bad mistake I made over the last year? And they're like, we don't know of any. And I said, well, then I'll say, I always get in the wrong lane of traffic. It always slows down when I get in that lane. Or if I jump in a lane at the grocery store, they forgot their credit card. I think those are the worst mistakes I make on a daily basis. And then I said, What's the best? And they said, Every decision we make around here is a great decision. So we couldn't find any, really.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

We thought it was glaring that we, you know, something in what way do you think tourism marketers and destinations should be more like educators?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Since you have that background as a principle, since we're we're educating people about a destination to entice them and encourage them to visit and get that business. So we're kind of, I mean, if you go on our YouTube site, you know, the films that we have on there are about our history, are about our food, or about our people, or about what makes us uniquely different. The series that we have in YouTube, it's all about education in a fun way, in an entertaining way, because we want you to come here and we want you to know us before you get here and then leave with a even a better impression. So I I think it should be a part of everything we do. We're educating people about who we are. And you have to love where you are, right? When you look at the top 25 markets, I think there's two of us that have been in the same top market for over a decade. I think that's Elliott in DC and Santiago and Tampa. And I love this place. It would be hard for me to go somewhere else and express that emotion, that love, because I truly love this place. When I speak about this, people tell me, you don't fake it. You love Tim. And I said, I do. I was an adopted son, and I have felt welcome and a part of the progress of this city since I arrived 23 years ago. And so there's something to be said about that. You can live somewhere forever and not feel like you've been a part of anything. I've been fortunate to live here for 23 years and feel like I've been a part of a lot of things. I mean, I could point to things, say, wow, that park I was involved in building, that museum I was engaged in, the zoo, that you know, you can say I was allowed to be a part of that. Uh, and in some places you don't get that chance. Think you froze up, my friend. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

One of us froze, but it kept recording while you were talking, so that's good. Anything you'd like to ask me?

SPEAKER_01 26:07

No, thank you for your interest in us. I I see all of your emails that come in and out, and I see the great work you're doing. Really appreciate you even reaching out and including us because, like I said, I think it's a story that's worth telling, everyone has grasped what has happened here. Uh it's pretty phenomenal. When I started in this job 13 years ago, hotel revenues in Hillsborough County were $423 million. We've paid $1.2 billion plus over the last three years, which is amazing because we've really not added the inventory that would rationalize that growth. It's about the occupancy rates and the demand that we have helped create that has led to that prosperity. Because when you think about $423 million to $1.2 billion in hotel taxable revenue and what that means as far as jobs and quality of life for the people in our industry, that's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

I appreciate you. I appreciate you taking the time to share with me. You got to come to Tampa in your bus. I've been. Okay, good, good. So I hold on.