Interview with Marc Garcia, President and CEO of Visit Mesa

hello today we'll be interviewing Mark Garcia president and CEO of visit Mesa a destination marketing organization so welcome mark thank you for having being here thanks for having me so Mark tell us a little bit about yourself and your background well as you mentioned I'm president CEO of visit Mesa been uh with the organization for over 10 years now it's really unbelievable how time flies uh prior to that I spent 15 years with visit Phoenix so I've been in the DMO business which is the destination marketing organization business obviously you know me well but uh

some of your viewers here some of the listeners May uh may know our organization by our former name which was the Mesa Convention and visitors bureau many convention and visitors bureaus have changed their name over the last 10 15 years to visit or explore or discover enter the city name to more aptly describe who we are what we do we're in sales and marketing when you have that Bureau word in it it kind of denotes government bureaucracy red tape and that's couldn't be further from the truth of who we are what we do so been

in this business for a long time I'm an Arizona native a valley native I have been married for 27 soon to be 28 years have three awesome boys uh who also grew up here in the valley and one of whom is an Arizona State University grad excellent fellow sundevil yeah so Mark in your organization and with the destination marketing especially with uh marketing Mesa you have to use project management skills in order to carry out different uh trips to carry out different programs and to carry out any type of thing that you want to highlight

Mesa in so what are some of the skills that you use to Showcase visit Mesa and what are some of the tools that you use to broadcast and get people to come to Mesa first it's a very competent staff a lot of folks it's making sure that you hire the right people underneath you to make sure that you're following all the protect all the uh the necessary processes and you have a good board of directors uh that supports you from a personal standpoint um obviously I use my calendar I live by it if it's not

in my calendar it doesn't exist uh that's really important to me um making sure that at the outset of any particular project and I know we're going to get into the autism certification but um and making sure that there you establish a certain goal there's a vision there's a mission for that project and then as you set your objectives and the deliverables underneath those objectives uh that there is consensus in the room or in the group or in the community around those set objectives and those deliverables and making sure that there's timelines associated with those

deliverables uh it makes all the sense in the world so it's constant regular effective communication to achieve that so you mentioned you have a very competent staff which you do the staff at ISA is superior to any other DMO sorry oh you're kind I love visit Mason the work that you do uh so what are some other qualities that you look for when you're building a team that you're looking for team members you know I think that you try to find those that share your vision or those that will um believe in the vision of

the organization because if there's belief there if there's honest and true belief in what you're trying to achieve you're going to get those who want to be there each day and don't look at it as uh just a paycheck they aren't staring at the clock for 5:00 p.m. to get out the door right you're having people who share your culture share your values I think that's where it starts uh those who um uh you know really want to to put the time in right I just nothing bothers me more than those who just try to

get the job done and not trying to go that that extra mile that proverbial extra mile um I think it really starts there obviously creativity in our business when you're in sales and marketing being creative is fundamental to who we are and what we do um we've gone hybrid now in order to attract that creative class um those folks are expecting at least hybrid if not fully remote and we may go there eventually um but to to lure the creative class um it's been important for us to to go hybrid But to answer your question

more specifically it's really about um sharing in and believing in the vision and being able to Dream Within that Vision excellent so you mentioned the autism certification that's one of the things I really want to talk to you about today so Mesa was recognized as the first city to be autism certified and friendly for autis for those people who have autism to come and enjoy Mesa and its amenities tell us how that came from just a dream so conception to reality and what steps did you take in order to get there um how much time

do we have here it's going to take a while um no um it started really in the summer of 2018 um our son our youngest son who is now 9 years old was diagnosed with severe autism at 13 months 13 or 14 months um so that was back in 2013 uh no 2014 when he got the diagnosis um but in 2018 we were on our normal summer vacation we go to a Southern California City uh it's typically a lazy day at the at the lazy week I should say at the beach typically stay at the

same condo uh that I've been going to since the 1970s and our son Mason just had meltdown after meltdown after meltdown was a really bad week um and what we had done I should say is typically we have this lazy week but on this trip we wanted to do something a little different we wanted to immerse oursel in the community so we decided to stay downtown in this city for at least half the week and then go to the beach for the final half and when he had these meltdowns it was at uh restaurants it

was at hotels it was at the museums we were used to the awkward stairs we'd get even at home in the grocery store for example the muffled Whispers those that suggest that well you can't control your kid you know they're having this meltdown and what was really interesting about this experience in that summer of 2018 was The Whispers And the stairs weren't coming from other guests like us at the restaurants or at the museums they were coming from supposed Hospitality professionals you know people that ought to know better they ought to provide great customer service

regardless of the circumstances and we were made to feel unwelcome we were made to feel uncomfortable and I say this is wrong I obviously can't do anything about this here but I'm in a position in Mesa where I can do something about it and it just so happened the timing was kind of right because we were just in the beginning stages of our three-year strategic plan with our board of directors so I related this experience to our board of directors and to our senior staff and even by then Chris I'd already begun doing a lot

of research right so this is almost you know he's probably four years old maybe turning five soon I've done a lot of research I me once you get that diagnosis it's it's a shock you're like wow what am I going to do uh what does his life look like as he gets older what does his life look like as a teenager as he becomes an adult and what kind of services he require where do you get those services and so obviously by then I had done a lot of that deep research found great Services we

have some of the greatest autism related Services uh anywhere in the United States uh places like s Southwest autism research and Resource Center our son went to the preschool there um and so many others you know Arizona autism United fantastic organization and our son's been getting those services but I realized then that this was a large growing call it a consumer base right that's Uber loyal right um and I knew that this was not only going to be something that was the right thing to do but a really good business decision for the reasons I

just mentioned and so I I started looking locally so I've done that research locally so I went to Sark I went to other organizations and tried to find out if there could be some type of uh um classes if there could be some type of education for our Hospitality related industry right at the restaurants at the hotels at the attractions so that they can better understand appreciate and provide good service uh for those in the autism community and I couldn't find it locally it didn't really exist I wasn't trying to create an army of therapists

really it was just more about recognition and awareness around it and so I stumbled across this organization based out of Jacksonville Florida called IBC CES it's a long name it's the internation International Board of credentialling and continuing education standards they had been doing certifications which is really what I was looking for a top to bottom educational platform that those in the industry could learn about autism and again how to provide good customer service around it and long story short back and forth Skyping this is before Zoom days we were Skyping with our board of directors

and we determined together that if we could get 50 of our businesses in Mesa um and 80% of their front facing or guest facing staff to go through this training that we could achieve what our goal was was to be an Autism certified travel destination at that time that's all it was meant to be uh and so we we jumped right in our staff became certified our board went through the training and we lined up five of our biggest Partners we lined up the Mesa Chamber of Commerce the city of Mesa Parks and Recreation Department

and three of our largest hotels fast forward to April 2019 we had this coming out party if you will where we made this announcement uh that this was our goal for the Mesa destination as a travel destination to become autism certified through ibcc and it was just unbelievable the amount of support the huge heart that Mesa has in coming together and supporting this Mission Mesa is the right place for this to happen Mesa has always kind of been drawn attracted and supported initiatives like this and so it became like a domino effect so many other

hotels and restaurants and other City departments thanks to city manager Chris Brady who agreed to do this mayor Giles Mayor John Giles uh lent his voice to it went on camera we produced these videos that helped us in the sales pitch to get folks to join us and it happened so quickly that by by the summer of 2019 we started to realize well we may be more than just certified as a as a travel destination but as a city through and through because the police department came through Mesa Police Department the fire department libraries Boeing

Corporation right it that that has their um a branch a large Branch where they build the Apache helicopter northeast Mesa they came forward SRP came forward and so many non-travel related businesses came forward going through this education some of it was not to provide customer service some of these organizations like Boeing like SRP their interest was on the employment side hiring those with cognitive or sensory disorders and going through the training process of how to do that effectively uh so that by November of 2019 we were able to announce with ibccs we had a big

event you remember it well at the Mesa Art Center where we announced we are the first ever autism certified city in the country and we now have over 5,000 people who either live or work in Mesa who have now gone through this training so it's been uh extremely gratifying uh to see uh a community initiative be rallied around in the manner that it has um it's just it feels warms your heart yeah so Mark with any project or initiative that visit Mesa Gets behind um or spearheads how do you side the budget on that project

and the resources that you'll allocate to it good question we are on a fiscal year budget so our fisal year is July 1 to June 30 each year uh so typically around March is when we identify um the time to start planning for the coming fiscal year uh some are programs that we're doing on an annual basis so we're simply cloning them uh and those are at Department levels um but typically it's me sending an email out to the department head saying okay it's budget time and uh start to prioritize the budget items by ranking

so uh you have 100 items with the those are items that are absolutely mandatory they're essential to our mission so you rank them in order 100 101 102 103 then there I've asked them um to identify 200 level programs those are things that um we'd like to do if we have the money right uh and so they rank them 200 201 202 203 um and then there are 300 level programs those are we may not have the money right now but we wish we could so they're wishless items and so once I have those at

every Department we sit down with the department heads and we run the numbers we do a forecast of where we think our revenues were funded by the hotel bed tax uh we also receed money through uh the county prop 302 that's a whole another discussion but it's another funding source for us and then we have funds that come to us from the private sector we're a a partnership based organization many of the hotels and restaurants attractions pay dues to us like a membership we call it partnership model because it's a uh there's different tiers there's

different tiers different levels you can buy in at um and so the leadership team and I so those directors and I uh once we add up those numbers and we see okay it's over what we're forecasting we need to now trim that budget so we'll have discussions together and make those decisions together about what stays in and what goes out uh and then once we have that pretty well ironed out pretty well cooked then we go to the board finance and longrange funding committee and we seek approval for that budget once that is ratified we

then go to the full board of directors at our June meeting as you know well as a board member of our organization where we seek ratification from the full board of directors and then it's communicated to the city of Mesa so in your job you obviously deal with the public and with many different stakeholders how do you engage them to get their feedback for your vision for visit Mesa and just for any project that you're working on in the community we do that a number of ways uh obviously with the board it's easy we beet

every other month so I'm communicating what those initiatives are uh gaining support for those initiatives sometimes a program uh that we didn't budget for uh presents itself to us and we think we have to do it uh and if it's got a certain Hefty price tag than I required to through our through our policies accounting policies to seek that approval um on a regular basis um we are communicating via email to our partnership base and our key stakeholders uh about the goings on of the day or of the week or of the month or of

the quarter uh so we're communicating every other week by email in that fashion uh we're just getting ready to start we've purchased this new soft called Gathering voices uh where I will be uh on camera and every other week I will um communicate a message to our key stakeholders to our partners um we are communicating industrywide as well I serve on the board of the United States travel Association so I'm in DC three or four times a year and then some other locations uh and I'm trying to elevate the Mesa brand uh in those forums

uh we also have a parent organization if you will called destinations International where we're also doing the same we've been very fortunate we're winning a lot of awards for our marketing campaigns and so it's shining a real positive light on us and when we win those Awards obviously we're able to communicate that to our stakeholders so uh it's sort of um a message of you know our investment is working right they're getting a return on their investment they're investing in us as an organization uh to elevate their own Brands indiv individually and collectively um and

so that's how we're doing it uh um I'm trying to think of other avenues that we communicate but I mean that's really what we do all day long in a number of different ways we hold mixers where we're you know face to face um talking about the latest um activities that are going on uh how does occupancy look at the hotels how does rate how is the yield looking what kind of business folks are getting any challenges any holes by holes I mean they may look forward to you know June of 2023 hey I got

a big hole right here i' like to fill uh we're willing to discount rates to get a piece of business in over that period so we're having those types of ongoing Communications with individual hotels so I know that in your pre your former job with visit Phoenix you had a large role in helping bring about the Phoenix Convention Center the new one can you tell us a little bit about that sure um your listeners probably don't remember the old Phoenix Civic Plaza uh um it was very much an outdoor Plaza you went up onto a

cement deck and down into the Hyatt into the other hotels um it was a much smaller space you know Phoenix was growing as a city fifth largest city in the country it needed a 21st century Convention Center um but in that case it required not only uh city council support but it also required uh State Legislature support so it was a I mean the process actually began years and years prior to it um but I can remember the years now it was 2001 two three and four and that was the whole advocacy period uh but

we went to the state legislature we developed these white papers and these books it was tabbed about what's the return on the investment what does the market look like can we accommodate a nearly million sare foot Convention Center which is what exists today um so it is a very much a surgical process obviously when it comes down to to Grassroots advocacy you need to know who the legislator is or the city council person is what are their touch points what do they really care about uh and you know communicating the value proposition of uh the

convention business the delegate and how much money they spend in market and obviously you know you're appealing to their sense of Pride for their Community as well right and that this is a point of Pride for the community um obviously it supports a lot of businesses in the area um so I would just say that the convention center expansion in Phoenix was a big part of why Downtown Phoenix is as popular as it is today yes Arizona State University coming down was big light rail coming through downtown was also very big uh tgen coming into

the market also was important so you know it's just it became a collective each one of these pieces are what or what are creating the vir Y in downtown Phoenix but it was a pretty laborious process uh to get that done and uh we kind the votes we got the state legislature which also built the uh Sheridan in downtown Phoenix so it was I don't remember I don't recall this is now a long time ago um but it was a significant investment by both uh the City of Phoenix and the State of Arizona um and

we got in by the skin of our teeth but I think now people recognize uh the value of that building what it brings to Phoenix definitely so can you tell us about a time where something went wrong during one of the projects you were managing and how did you address it well I think you're well aware uh that in 2018 uh we were trying to get a ballot measure passed in the city of Mesa it was called Mesa plays trying to build a large youth and amateur sports Marketplace I felt even when I arrived in

Mesa you know you do your own SWAT analysis and you determine okay what how can I Elevate the brm and that's our job how do I Elevate the brand how do I bring more visitors and their dollars in the community Mesa already being the familyfriendly destination that it is I felt that youth and amateur sports and building the right infrastructure the right product around that would really lift Mesa and bring more visitors in their dollars um so that was when I arrived and I'd been talking to folks we need to get get this done let's

get this done and dreaming about it putting a market um you know an economic impact and feasibility study market analysis uh ultimately um one over uh those at the city to at least put it on the ballot but we had a very challenging job ahead of us because um our project represented three separate questions on the ballot it was a bond initiative Parks and Recreation Bond Bond initiative as well as a couple other questions raising the hotel bed bed tax to help pay for it um so this is a this I'm answering your question in

a way that It ultimately failed um but you know we learned throughout the process that it was going to be very difficult to communicate these other two questions the bond initiative had a lot of things wrapped up into it that we certainly knew that residents in Mesa wanted you know an upgrade to the idea Museum uh new parks new libraries I think a police station was wrapped up into it in different parts of the community uh as well as 10 of our 24 fields that would make up Mesa plays this large youth and amateur sports

marketplace with have four baseball fields associated with it as well there were longer term plans of putting a 110,000 foot indor Fieldhouse uh the fortunate thing is that it did fail because we got a larger better much better project out of it now with maybe your your uh your CL your students will know Bel Park Out in southeast Mesa which is a massive complex that has 24 Fields can grow to 30 250,000 ft indoor Fieldhouse where you can do uh basketball tournaments of 30 courts you can double that for volleyball think of every type of

Indoor Sport table tennis uh taekwon doe Judo bad Mitten just so many sports and of course you build uh fields at soccer Dimensions because you can everything fits on a soccer field so think of rugby and Lacrosse and field hockey uh and then that facility also has 41 pickleball courts it has two quads of baseball softball fields it's just a fantastic uh facility But to answer your question you know we had to adjust it was about communicating we were facing an uphill battle um to get that out there and while we lost I think we

were effective in developing a communication strategy a Grassroots advocacy strategy knocking on doors talking to families in their homes uh about the value prop opposition of this complex and while we failed I think that um it was very narrow we only lost one question out of 180,000 voters in Mesa the one question failed by I think 120 votes and the other one failed by just 70 votes um where polling was showing us way behind when we started this um so it it was a kind of a sad story at the time I was extremely frustrated

didn't happen but ultimately we got a better product out of it at least we showed during that process that there was a market for it and the private sector came along with bellbank Park to fulfill that promise and that need so hope I answered your question you did so thank you so with with all the project that you've overseen throughout your entire career what is some of the things that you're most proud of and that have been most successful well certainly the autism initiative we talk about it um that was a a gargantuan task ahead

of us uh to accomplish what we did and for it to happen as quickly as it did uh it feels really good we've received a lot of uh attention accolades a lot of media support we've been in the New York Times we've been on BBC a lot of people now know about Mesa because of this autism initiative uh and we're not stopping there we're doing some so many more things uh related to accessibility we established a new foundation called the Mesa Regional foundation for accessibility diversity in inclusion we're running programming out of it uh really

promising um and now we are uh underwriting um the costs for a lot of technology and other supports in and around accessibility some of some hidden disabilities some more visible uh We've partnered with Ira AI a and your students can learn about that air a.co uh it provides we've geofence Mesa so whether you're a resident or you're a visitor and you're in Mesa you can access a virtual interpreter via Ira it's an app and uh for those with low vision or who are blind it allows them to navigate the city you could be in a

grocery store you could be in a park you could be at the airport you could be in a hotel you can have them read a menu to you if you can't see the menu at a restaurant so um really proud of of that we also work with the sunflower hidden disability program it's a lanyard or a bracelet that you wear where you self-identify as having a hidden disability and we've trained all of our Hospitality staff in the community uh to recognize this lanyard or this this bracelet if you're wearing it hey they just may need

a little more time a little more patience a little more kindness uh we're doing a lot of virtual tours we've partnered with two different organizations able eyes and threshold 360 and we've underwritten the cost to do virtual tours of now 70 businesses in Mesa because for the disability Community they need to know before they go yeah so they need to it's it's very helpful them helpful to them to have these videos so they can see where the restroom is uh where to park uh access from the parking lot into the facility um it's just extremely

helpful and uh again been very well received by those in the disability community and recognized by uh leadership in uh hospitality and tourism nationally yeah you've been internation you've been both recognized at the state level nationally and international for all the work that you've done we really have yeah yes thank you well thank you Mark for coming today thank you for sharing your knowledge your expertise and your experiences it's been my pleasure we really appreciate it thanks for having me Mark Garcia president and CEO uh visit Mesa