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this is Miss Jamie Baker um and she is
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in the public relations department for
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the South Carolina Department of Tourism
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and Recreation um and so she is going to
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tell us all about what that means and um
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and what kinds of careers hopefully um
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might be related to that area of the
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industry um so please welcome Miss
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Baker hello as
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um Miss Gibson I was going to say Miss
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soon as Miss Gibson mentioned um I'm
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here from Columbia today work for the
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South Carolina Department of parks
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recreation and tourism you may have seen
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our brand before discover South Carolina
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obviously throughout the state we we
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promote our state to Travelers and also
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instate Travelers so you may have seen a
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few Billboards um I'm here to talk about
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what I do as a public relations manager
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for the state but I'll try to tell on
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maybe a few other occupations within our
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department it's a large department so
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won't be able to cover all of them but
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I'm happy to also take questions at the
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end before I kind of dive deep into the
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public
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relations part I wanted just to show a
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short video of our brand in case you
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aren't
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familiar I'm G to wake y'all up a little
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bit I know how to work
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it oh I got it got it
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take
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e for
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the
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all right so that's the Discover South
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Carolina
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brand and as you can see we just have so
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much in the state to offer travelers all
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the way from here we are in bluon really
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close to the beach to up in the upstate
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where we've got mountains as you saw
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rock climbing I don't know if any of
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y'all have been up that way but just
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such a variety to offer Travelers we are
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a top destination we have top cities in
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the state that are um internationally
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known so there's just so much to offer
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Travelers and what our goal our mission
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in our department is to put heads in
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beds feet in Fairways as you saw the
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golfers and people in our Parks so that
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is our goal well I'm just a tiny piece
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on how we make that happen through the
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pr
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piece I'm trying to get folks here that
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that's what they
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say how do how do we get them here well
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of course word of mouth right
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everybody can tell your friends and
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family well co go here this is an
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amazing place to visit but that always
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doesn't work so sometimes it takes more
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than just an opinion or a um you know
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someone else's fabulous trip to spread
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the word so how we reach out to um the
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public is to bring in journalists and
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what the journalists do is write about
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our beautiful state and I am responsible
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for hosting the journalist so 18 visits
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just this year um I've had had
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journalists in the state these are some
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cute pict pictures from some of my
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visits just recently this picture I took
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four journalists to the upstat we went
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to Travelers Rest Greer
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Greenville he must be from there and um
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as you can see the mountains in the
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background we took them all over the UPC
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country for four days but right before
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this picture was taken we were taking
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them on a horseback waterfall tour
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unfortunately I didn't get to go that
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day there there wasn't enough enough
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coures for me to attend but I can't wait
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to go and it looked really cool they
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sent me pictures of the waterfalls and
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had a great time wandering through the
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woods on Horseback this picture down
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here below is a tour that I took last
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fall so a year ago and we actually came
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close to here we ended up in buurt but
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we visited a lot of africanamerican
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sites so we went to many different
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cities mainly along the coast Charleston
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bufort and even to Orangeburg and say
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these are the journalists that I hosted
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then so just this kind of gives you a
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sample of what I do I do two big trips a
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year with journalists as well as we
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we've had media missions in New York
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Atlanta and
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Chicago I'll dive more into the
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journalist part on my other slide deck
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um to kind of give you a feel for
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which Publications we've had articles in
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and sort of how all of that works but I
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wanted to skip over to the second part
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of my job that is really big and that is
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the promotion of the South Carolina Chef
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ambassador program I'm sure no one's
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probably heard of it but we have a
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program where we um basically Select
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Three Chefs each year from the state and
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we consider them our Chef ambassadors we
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try to pick chefs from all over the
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state so there's not three in the low
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country or three in the up country but
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they're usually one in the up country
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one in the Midlands of the state and
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then of course one down here in the Low
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Country so this year actually our Chef
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amb one of our Chef ambassadors is right
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here from bluon her name is Leslie
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Roland she's right there in the middle
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and she owns the cottage Cafe in
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downtown blon so if you haven't given
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that restaurant a try I certainly
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recommend
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it but this is the 10th year of the pro
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program um it was created in 2014 by
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Nikki Haley she thought you know we got
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to find a way to get our chefs involved
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because food is such a big piece of our
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travel so what we do is we appoint them
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as Chef ambassadors they attend food
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festivals in the state throughout the
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year we also take them out of state to
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kind of spread the word to Travelers
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that are out of our state and um they
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are required to use um South Carolina
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produce in their restaurants that's kind
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of their the stipulation they have to
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you know use grown far and use our Farms
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that can't really be outsourced from
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another state which is
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easy yes some products but but it has to
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incorporate a few products that are
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farmed in state so like Leslie for
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instance uses the Grits that are
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produced close by the other yeah yeah so
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this is Michael cybert he's in Greer
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South Carolina he owns a restaurant
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called Anonymous Burgers as well as a
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catering company and this is Javier Ur
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and he's out of Colombia and he owns a
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restaurant called
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ratio and so they've all been on board
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since January so they're kind of
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entering the um last few months of their
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ambassadorship I'm sure they're getting
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excited it's been a long year they've
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been working
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hard um and on November 2nd
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both Javier and Leslie will attend a big
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event down here in Hilton Head the
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motoring
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Festival Concord yes so they'll be um
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the featured chefs at that so I'm
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helping right now line all that up for
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them and make sure that everybody's on
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the same
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page so this is just kind of a group
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shot of just about 10 of the chefs just
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last month in September we had a kind of
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10year celebration for them since it was
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the 10 year of the program and uh we
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were at Euphoria which is a huge uh food
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event in SE September in Greenville and
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we decided you know we need to make this
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super special since it's their 10year
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anniversary of the program so we had 10
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chefs attend Euphoria on Saturday and 10
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on Sunday so this is their group shot
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that I took of them on Saturday but it
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was really cool just to have we had a
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special South Carolina Section with all
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these special Chef ambassadors so when
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you entered kind of that little entrance
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you could you knew that all the chefs
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were part of the ambassadorship and
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you're sampling South Carolina food
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there are other food vendors from you
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know North Carolina Tennessee
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surrounding states there but this is
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like the South Carolina
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Section and then of course I listed a
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few of the other big food events in our
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state you may have uh you may know about
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them Charleston Wine and Food which is
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in March Florence Wine and Food in April
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and then Columbia also has one in
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April and then before I start this video
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um I wanted just to point out that our
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ambassador is Darius Rucker so couple
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years back we decided you know we need
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somebody to be our face in this and he
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um uh is paid by the state to um help us
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out with our ads our videos all of our
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promiss so I'll just show you this quick
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video that features
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Darius when you look around really
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offensive why my home City from the
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beaches all the way up to the beautiful
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mountain South Carolina got awesome
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scenery cool cities Rich culture super
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friendly
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the best thing you can do come your own
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favorite
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place see I love this
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place we think darus does a pretty good
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job of
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that I looked him up and
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that's
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funny so yes he also is a South Carolina
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native he went to the University of
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South Carolina um believe he has a house
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in Charleston of course also
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Nashville and we show that video a lot
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we're on the road marketing and doing PR
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and presentations just because um he
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does a great job promoting our our state
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so I'm not going to um dive into all
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these slides because they're a bit over
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overwhelming but I did want to just kind
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of show you a few and kind of give you
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um an overview of of the pr role so
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these were our top 10 coverage
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highlights from last year all these
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little links go to articles that were
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produced um I'll just try to click on
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one we actually
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had yes we had a um a feature on The
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Today Show last year
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I don't know that it will show up but
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you know when you get on the Today's
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Show you're pretty proud that that's
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that's a pretty big deal so we were
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excited they talked about um
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Greenville so yeah this is just a list
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here of some of those um
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major Publications that we were a part
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of travel and Leisure also is a huge um
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big win for us talking about this is
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talking out the fireflies that are at
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congri National Park right outside
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Columbia but with these
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articles they're just a huge win for us
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they're you know promoting our state in
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every
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way the um fiscal year oh fiscal year so
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obviously uh we did great we we did even
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better in 2024 if you if you look at the
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value
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we had 71 articles produced in 2023 and
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then 78 in
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2024 and then uh this this is about an
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award that we just won in August it was
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very exciting we went to a conference in
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um Ohio and it's called the esto
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conference a big tourism conference that
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um States cities regions all of attend
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basically destination Mark marketing
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organizations I don't want to use too
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many acronyms but um everyone goes it's
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a national conference it was in Ohio
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this year and of course being a state we
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always submit Awards because you know we
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want to win we want to win Awards so
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this year we submitted two awards for
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the esto conference and we're so excited
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that we actually won the pr award that
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night and what we won for was this um
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was my journalist trip where I showed
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you the African-American group that came
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to the state to learn about black
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history we won for that trip and the
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reason we won is right here with the
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results to the right we had 22 total
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articles from that trip um an increase
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on our website at
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121% on those page visits um just the
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the results were remarkable what an
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increase we had so we were super excited
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um I got to go to the stage and get the
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award for the organization with another
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group the group of our my co-workers but
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that obviously doesn't happen every day
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we don't win for
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every for
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everything and then again I mentioned
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that you know I'm I'm charged with
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hosting a certain number of journalists
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each year um hosted 80 last year and
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here's where they were from if you look
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at the map um this is where not where
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they were from but this is where they
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visited so we want to make sure that you
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know they're not just visiting Hilton
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Head or they're not just visiting
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Colombia we have a a wide variety of
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spots that they're they're
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visiting and the um logos here on the
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left are uh where the the Articles ended
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up
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we also do media missions as I mentioned
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um gonna getting ready to go to New York
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in November to take the chefs to an
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event so the Three Chefs that we just
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saw will be joining me in New York for a
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special dinner and media event and that
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just gives us an opportunity to showcase
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them the public will be invited so
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anyone can buy a ticket to the dinner
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and then another night will be the media
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which is super helpful because the media
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will come and learn about them and then
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write about
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them last year we had trips in New York
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Atlanta and
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Chicago
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and just to kind of
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touch on a few things there's lots of
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charts here that can get super
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confusing
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um but just wanted to to touch on what
00:18:09
we have coming up which may um may
00:18:13
interest you guys we're going to do a um
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well we just finished this media trip to
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Euphoria but in the spring we're going
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to do a journalist trip that will talk
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about all the or not all because we
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can't hit all of them but we will visit
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with journalists some Revolutionary War
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spots in the
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state so we're excited about that this
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just kind of goes through what what
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we'll plan to do with them where we will
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take them meaning me I will host them
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but um so we're excited about this
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probably happening it says Pro proposed
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dates in November or December but we
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moved it on to April so the weather
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would be prettier for them we didn't
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want journalists coming into our state
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when it was cold and maybe
00:19:02
rainy and then another one that we are
00:19:05
doing which is super exciting is it's
00:19:08
called The Wonder list in South
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Carolina and we're taking them to Conger
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National Park to see the fireflies which
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is this phto up here and to a few really
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rare places that you really can't see in
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other
00:19:25
states they're going to see the swans at
00:19:27
Swan Lake um there's a topiary Garden in
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Bishopville so these are the kind of
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things we capitalize on trying to bring
00:19:35
in journalists that we know that they're
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going to they're going to see something
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they may not see in another
00:19:50
spot so just mentioned that dinner in
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New York um the highlights of that are
00:19:56
here to the left uh it's called called
00:19:59
the beard the platform the James Beard
00:20:01
house found Foundation this is where
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we're taking them the chefs to have a
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special dinner for the public and media
00:20:08
we will be doing this other um adventure
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with the chefs probably in 2025 probably
00:20:16
the summer but we're going to actually
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go
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um take them to experience it's a
00:20:22
cooking show so we look for
00:20:25
opportunities to showcase the chefs at
00:20:26
all times and things change you know
00:20:29
this is our original plan we might
00:20:31
decide six mon six months down the road
00:20:33
that that might not work depending on
00:20:35
the
00:20:42
budget any questions um for
00:20:46
me yes ma'am so you said like you talked
00:20:50
a lot about the cooking do you also work
00:20:52
with the uh the parks like national
00:20:54
parks and stuff like that so we are
00:20:57
responsible for the State Park
00:21:00
of course we promote the national parks
00:21:01
because they're an amazing asset but we
00:21:04
do not oversee the national parks we
00:21:06
oversee the state
00:21:08
parks so in my office downtown Columbia
00:21:11
we're located right behind the state
00:21:13
house um under our umbrella is the state
00:21:17
park so there's lots of Park employees
00:21:20
there not necessarily the people that
00:21:22
work at the parks that's you know
00:21:23
they're out in the field um then there's
00:21:26
a sales and marketing P which I work in
00:21:30
and there's even a film office where the
00:21:32
film office May um has the job to
00:21:37
approve or disapprove whether or not
00:21:39
you're going to come film your show in
00:21:40
South
00:21:41
Carolina so as you know um Outer Banks
00:21:45
is filming in our state so that all runs
00:21:48
through our film
00:21:51
office I just wanted to point out kind
00:21:54
of to kind of show you the full picture
00:21:58
of the Publications so these these are
00:22:00
all our Target Publications you know we
00:22:03
would love to be in every one of
00:22:06
these have an article about South
00:22:08
Carolina in any one of
00:22:11
these
00:22:16
watchwork and you know that may or may
00:22:18
not have been a South Carolina chef but
00:22:21
you know we certainly love that even if
00:22:24
it's not a chef Ambassador we like to
00:22:26
see that South Carolina Chef's for
00:22:28
getting
00:22:30
recognition so yeah this PR field is
00:22:33
just one
00:22:35
um obviously
00:22:38
field in um for the state tourism office
00:22:43
there's you know event planners there's
00:22:46
uh South Cara offers a Welcome Center we
00:22:49
have welcome centers all over the state
00:22:52
there's an entire staff that helps
00:22:54
manage the welcome centers and all their
00:22:57
activities all their employ
00:22:59
employes there's lots of different um
00:23:02
positions if you'll go to discover
00:23:04
southcarolina.com or
00:23:24
scpr.org as
00:23:28
spent the first 20 years of my career
00:23:31
working for one of the uh 11 tourism
00:23:34
regions that we have in the state so the
00:23:36
state's made of 11 tourism regions and
00:23:39
the one I worked for was the capital
00:23:41
city Lake Murray country region which is
00:23:43
right outside Colombia sit our office
00:23:46
sat really close to Lake
00:23:47
Murray I was there for 20 years it's a
00:23:50
smaller
00:23:52
perspective I did all the marketing all
00:23:54
the pr all the little small tasks it was
00:23:57
an office of five people um certainly
00:24:00
what I've explained to you today from
00:24:02
the pr perspective it's a bigger scope
00:24:05
you know I only have
00:24:07
um two really big pieces that I'm in
00:24:10
charge of but I'm over the state whereas
00:24:13
in the smaller tourism offices you're
00:24:16
you're dealing with a smaller crew and
00:24:18
less and less um territory to cover and
00:24:22
you guys have some great small tourism
00:24:24
offices right here in your backyard as
00:24:26
well and I know those folks well
00:24:29
they're great people too I know they
00:24:30
would do
00:24:33
internships but um any questions for
00:24:55
me I'll answer the typical day first so
00:24:59
I feel like in this position there
00:25:01
really isn't a typical day
00:25:05
um really there's not I do answer a ton
00:25:08
of
00:25:09
emails um so I'm I'm not necessarily out
00:25:13
and about all the time but it's
00:25:15
definitely a 5050 split I'm traveling a
00:25:18
good bit but then I'm also looking at my
00:25:20
computer a good bit when I say that I
00:25:22
answer a ton of emails um my last name
00:25:25
is Baker so I'm at the top um of the
00:25:29
list when you go to the website and so
00:25:32
already I'm the pr manager so they're
00:25:34
like well she's going to know and then
00:25:37
second she's also at the top of the list
00:25:39
so we're just going to call her or we're
00:25:40
just going to email her so I do get a
00:25:43
ton of phone calls Andor emails just
00:25:45
random
00:25:47
things um from you know things that are
00:25:51
huge and great um asking questions and
00:25:54
things that are really weird so you just
00:25:56
you never know I mean I have just a
00:25:59
couple weeks ago had a lady that said
00:26:00
that she had this amazing South Carolina
00:26:03
map hanging in her house that she wanted
00:26:04
to donate to the
00:26:06
state and um she said can I please help
00:26:09
her that no one else would answer the
00:26:11
phone and she just wanted to get this
00:26:13
map out of her house and of course I'm
00:26:15
like I I don't know what to do with the
00:26:18
map you know but those those are the
00:26:20
kind of weird requests that I I get I
00:26:23
did help her find a place with the map
00:26:25
but you just never know um but most of
00:26:27
the time I'm answer emails regarding the
00:26:29
chefs I get lots of requests to have
00:26:32
them either come
00:26:34
out or um you know
00:26:38
Festival any lots of Chef questions
00:26:41
we're going through the process now
00:26:42
we're selecting the chefs for 20125 so
00:26:45
that's a big process we had all the
00:26:47
partners submit their favorite chefs we
00:26:49
have to go through all the submissions
00:26:51
it's usually around 50 75 submissions so
00:26:54
we have to select
00:26:56
them um but I'm also
00:26:58
constantly answering journalist requests
00:27:02
yesterday uh had a lady that I took on a
00:27:05
trip she's from New York she said I
00:27:08
really want to help South Carolina South
00:27:09
Carolina out can you um there's a great
00:27:13
article that they're working on will you
00:27:15
provide a quote so by the way can you
00:27:18
have that done in an hour because we're
00:27:19
on a time crunch you know a constant
00:27:21
responding back to fulfill those
00:27:24
requests we're also you know the
00:27:27
journalists need our help in creating
00:27:29
the Articles and they'll put out um
00:27:32
requests all the time and say will you
00:27:35
answer these 10 questions and get back
00:27:37
to me in a week and it it might be not
00:27:39
anything that I can answer but I have to
00:27:41
reach out to the partners reach out to
00:27:43
the folks in Hilton Head and say can you
00:27:45
help me because I don't know the best
00:27:47
answers to this so it's constant
00:27:49
communicating responding that kind of
00:27:52
thing but then the fun side is I do get
00:27:54
a travel all around the state I'm here
00:27:57
today hang out with y'all um um last
00:28:01
week I was delivering supplies up to the
00:28:04
to the state parks that were damaged by
00:28:06
the storm so I do also have that
00:28:09
Community component where I need to be
00:28:11
out and
00:28:13
about and then how I got involved I
00:28:16
actually didn't major in
00:28:19
Hospitality um and I was more on the
00:28:23
journalism side and knew I like to write
00:28:27
and I I thought
00:28:28
I actually thought that I would want to
00:28:30
write for a a magazine well then I
00:28:33
realized that when I graduated college I
00:28:36
probably wouldn't write for a magazine
00:28:38
and I started looking for more of
00:28:41
marketing positions where I could write
00:28:44
and I ended up in the tourism industry
00:28:48
and that was 22 years
00:28:51
ago and pretty much um it was easy to
00:28:55
learn the tourism industry it's a fun
00:28:57
industry
00:28:58
and exciting and it it wasn't it wasn't
00:29:03
hard to get on board with
00:29:09
it and of course I like to travel so
00:29:11
that
00:29:12
helped any other
00:29:16
questions yes
00:29:26
ma'am so the state the two state parks I
00:29:29
visited on
00:29:31
Wednesday they weren't too bad they were
00:29:33
both located close to Lake Hartwell
00:29:35
which is close to Clemson um they had
00:29:38
trees
00:29:40
down they had just regained power but I
00:29:43
was delivering food and
00:29:46
water but they definitely I I took the
00:29:49
back way up I went uh through a lot of
00:29:51
small towns in South Carolina Saluda
00:29:54
Abbyville and some of those communities
00:29:57
were pretty bad condition I'd have I
00:29:59
would get to a road that was blocked and
00:30:01
I'd have to find a thank goodness for
00:30:03
UPS in my phone I'd have to figure out a
00:30:05
way out because they definitely had
00:30:07
roads
00:30:09
closed I definitely think that they're
00:30:11
they're still recovering they're still
00:30:13
having folks bring supplies up up that
00:30:17
way any other
00:30:21
questions yes ma'am
00:30:28
the days where if you're going somewhere
00:30:29
you call up in local tourism office and
00:30:32
they send you a packet with do and I'm
00:30:36
wondering if over the last couple of
00:30:37
decades how that's changed what does it
00:30:40
look like um moving forward going to be
00:30:43
you know doing things
00:30:44
differently technology what's going on I
00:30:48
mean certainly it's changed over the
00:30:50
years you know everything is way more
00:30:54
digital um everybody is using their
00:30:57
phones not really even laptops anymore
00:31:00
to search travel we know that from you
00:31:03
know data
00:31:06
and but I feel like not just South
00:31:10
Carolina I feel like for the most part
00:31:13
states are still printing visitor
00:31:15
guides um we're still printing brochures
00:31:19
people still do like holding that that
00:31:23
piece of
00:31:24
literature um our state definitely as I
00:31:28
mentioned has the welcome centers that I
00:31:31
don't know if any of you have walked in
00:31:32
a Welcome Center you definitely should
00:31:34
stop just just to learn more but they
00:31:39
the welcome centers were filled with
00:31:40
brochures I mean it's crazy and fabulous
00:31:44
how much information they have um and
00:31:46
you can go to this hardyville welcome
00:31:48
center and get information about
00:31:50
Greenville so it's you know it's not
00:31:52
just Central
00:31:53
information but so I do feel like the
00:31:57
brochure are not going
00:31:59
away but pretty much the phones are
00:32:03
where everyone is getting their
00:32:05
information so that just means with
00:32:08
every like everything you know our
00:32:09
websites have to be um Dynamic we've got
00:32:13
to have all the content there because
00:32:16
that's probably the number one spot the
00:32:19
phones but I don't we don't see the
00:32:21
paper going away we still produce
00:32:23
visitor guides uh we still send them out
00:32:26
we still get phone calls
00:32:28
requests so it's not necessarily dying
00:32:31
just
00:32:33
yet
00:32:37
yeah
00:32:44
yes sometimes it's just fulfilling all
00:32:47
the requests and a lot of times as I
00:32:50
mentioned they're you know I mean I
00:32:52
haven't looked at my phone in a minute
00:32:54
but someone may have emailed me and said
00:32:56
by the way can you have this back back
00:32:57
to me in an hour I mean you know
00:32:59
sometimes you just can't um but it's fun
00:33:05
it's uh exciting it's something great to
00:33:08
promote I mean I'm a South Carolinian
00:33:09
grew up here born and raised I enjoy it
00:33:13
um I'm not dreading to go to work every
00:33:16
day I really like my job but you know
00:33:19
just sometimes it's hard to it's hard to
00:33:21
keep up that fast pace our spring and
00:33:23
fall are the busiest times kind of slows
00:33:25
down in the winter um
00:33:28
travel in general does unless you're you
00:33:31
know the islands and going there um and
00:33:34
then the summertime it's so hot as y'all
00:33:37
know in South Carolina that everybody's
00:33:40
on their vacations everything has been
00:33:41
planned so we kind of have a little bit
00:33:43
of a
00:33:44
low which is
00:33:49
nice yeah like I said this is just one
00:33:52
piece of the Discover South Carolina
00:33:54
umbrella we have social media managers
00:33:58
um a guy that you know helps us with our
00:34:02
website so there's all kinds of um folks
00:34:06
that make this happen there's about 20
00:34:08
people on my hall that I work
00:34:12
on but um if you want to if you're
00:34:15
interested in learning more about it I
00:34:18
encourage you to go to those website
00:34:20
websites scpr.org
00:34:22
to learn more and there's plenty of
00:34:25
opportunities out there if you would
00:34:26
want to dive in deeper and do an
00:34:29
internship or just even reach out to
00:34:30
somebody local that um does the local
00:34:33
tourism office
00:34:35
here thank y'all for having me
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