cruising down nineteen yes so it was a it was an eventful morning getting here is a great part of pittsburgh not as familiar with this as you know sort of closer suburbs mount lebanon and so it was actually fun getting lost because i got to see some of the beautiful houses in the mountains back here so it's really a thrill to to get to meet with you how many are from the peters cannons were i saw on a few mount lebanon and i pursued claire ok great anybody from the city ok now ok all right i live i live on mount washington and i lived on the north side for many years so i've never really gone much further than maybe a mile from the heart of the city i'm not moving into town though because i feel like i'd be at work all the time i mean i need a place to go home to commuting out this for many of you actually work in town and drive this distance because that's a that's a hike  i want to find out a little bit more about what you do when you go on vacation because this is you're talking about staycation today and you know basically people don't seem to think about their own hometown as a place to go on vacation anybody ever done a staycation stayed at home but visited like you were away anybody actually ever stay in a hotel during a steak ok great good good good because that that's what we like we like people who stay overnight we love that you want to do all the things in pittsburgh but it doesn't really feel like vacation until you you go and stay somewhere and we'll tell you a little bit about some of the places that you can see and stay and things that you can do i really want to thank margaret in and sharon for helping me this morning and margaret did a great job of getting the organized for this today so margaret thank you very much my dear you're the best also we've got some students here helping harrison's taking some photographs in the back we've got sidney and carly in the back this way doing video and cindy's going to be my helper she's been dimming the lights and work in the bags and we're going to have a raffle at the end this afternoon earth later this morning so if everybody got a raffle ticket i hope if you didn't there's some still up here we have some pittsburgh prizes to give away and a couple tickets to the washington symphony too so make sure that you have those as margaret introduced me on to the library on the vice president marketing visit pittsburgh i've been with visit pittsburgh since one thousand nine hundred ninety i started the cultural heritage tourism program at visit pittsburgh which is really about getting people who come to pittsburgh for for the ventures travel where they like the arts they like history they go to shows they go to museums and eventually we realize that all tourism the pictures basically cultural tourism because we have such great amenities here that we sort of merged all of our tourism marketing together into under one roof under the marketing umbrella so i'm p of marketing and really on the lucky one that gets to market pittsburgh to the world and it couldn't be a better job i keep thinking one day they're going to throw me out and i say you'd have to tear me away from my computer to to let me go because i just absolutely love love working here my company's been around since one thousand nine hundred eighty five you may remember it as the greater pittsburgh convention and visitor's bureau the g p c be a mouthful nobody could remember who we were so we had to change our name back in zero six we change our name to visit pittsburgh we were originally in thirty five part of the chamber of commerce so in a lot of places where where tourism has grown initially you begin as the chamber of commerce so when you hear it's a chamber of commerce day outside which today isn't really one of those blue skies beautiful day that's because we're all chamber people and we broke away and started our own pretty much back in the sixty's in pennsylvania legislature provided support for a hotel tax which could be added on to everyone who comes to the region everyone is checked out of hotel pays an additional seven percent tax in allegheny county so if you've gone to hotels my room rates only fifty nine dollars then you get your bill and you go what's all this stuff that's hotel tax and most areas collect tax it's a it's now sort of a the way of the world all over the world and that tax becomes what we use to remarket this place in other places to visitors you don't see a whole lot about our materials and you don't see much about visit pittsburgh in pittsburgh you pricing my boss craig davis real handsome guy gray hair salt and pepper he's only been at this job for about a year to almost two years now and  he's really our spokes person he's the east end guy he doesn't live in the city we're not mandated to live in allegheny county they're to tell you the truth we are not part of local government we're not part of allegheny county government we're not part of city government we're an independent five hundred one c three nonprofit but we get our funding through probably eighty percent of our funding comes from this hotel tax i mention we're also a membership organization we have about six hundred members who find value in reaching people who come here for whether it's business conventions or leisure travel now mostly what we're going to talk about today is the leisure travel side of things because we're not trying to get you to come to a convention you don't really have much of a choice when you go to a convention a meeting planner pretty much decides that for you and you go wherever they say you're going so visit pittsburgh on the convention side of our business really markets to lead to the meeting planner on the on the tourism side of our business we market to people who are looking to go somewhere for fun and we don't really pretend that pittsburgh's that two week vacation remember this when you went away for two weeks we really more like a three four day weekend getaway and i'll tell you a little bit about who the people are that come to visit us we're about a ten million dollar budgeted organization probably three quarters of that money goes towards sales and marketing departments probably more marketing and advertising oriented the convention side of things more sales are and we have guys on the street to go out and talk to meeting planners my area is more involved with research in advertising and promotions and we with about fifty employees two that are off site one is in chicago one is in d c those are places where meeting planners tend to be so we like to have them offsite the reason that tourism matters ok wait a thing out of the song here we go this is our mission dedicated to generating commission a trade show you can you can read along the reason that travel matter so much to pittsburgh is it's a five point five billion dollar industry not million but billion people don't realize that they live here you don't realize people walking around here have come here to spend their money on lots of things from transportation shopping dining combinations obviously and recreation recreation includes a lot of what we're going to talk about this morning so who are these people that are spending money now this is the leisure traveler this is that this is the use out there they're coming in and to tell you truth we don't really market super far from pittsburgh we tend to stay within a driving distance because seventy percent of our visitors drive here  mark it to the cleveland columbus area buffalo erie a little bit over toward state college harrisburg down south towards weird and but it's mostly ohio and new york and it's a matter of budget really for hardcore paid advertising it's still pretty expensive to advertise particularly in print so we're doing a lot more digital advertising which gives us a much more targeted approach to getting to reaching out to people but these are the people we're reaching out to so we know a lot about them they visit because it's easy to get here their average age is about between forty and fifty they like to eat and go to museums they like to go to historic landmarks they like cultural amenities they spend about three nights here fifty three percent of them are women women typically make the travel decisions right does that happen in your house via and the incomes probably average exert a little over seventy five thousand dollars so these are travelers you know these are people who like to see new things do new things one of the things that we've managed to do in this israeli and active pursuit of ours visit pittsburgh is to bring in really big events at least one big big event a year and we go way back before two thousand and nine but the two thousand and nine event that i put up here g twenty summit that was really the big sort of game changer for pittsburgh most of you probably when you heard g twenty was coming here if you didn't know what it was when you heard what it was you went why is that coming here and so did a lot of people who came here for it journalist giggled in washington when they announced that pittsburgh was going to be the place for for the g twenty but we really realized that this was the opportunity to tell pittsburgh story the new pittsburgh to journalists and leaders from around the world and we got about one hundred million dollars worth of free advertising from the g twenty and it was all positive those writers came here to write terrible things about riots and whatever but they really didn't have that much of a story to tell what they told was our story how pittsburgh as margaret mentioned has gone from the industrial place that it that it was to what it is now green lean and mean  we had the u s women's golf in two thousand and ten the winter classic one young world that was a big event bringing in young people from around the world to future leaders future g twenty leaders probably frozen for was last year that  group if you know hockey people they draw they they drank out our entire city on monday after this event there was no good in pittsburgh i'm telling you could not get a drink in town that that was the we were prepared for that and the next one the gymnastics championships that's the summer i'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit but i don't think there's as big a drinker's as those hockey didn't will but you mentioned what we call buzz margaret this is this is the one of the bigger accolades that we've received lately this is when national geographic named us one of the best places in the world to visit in two thousand and twelve so we made a huge fuss of this because we were the only american city on the list we were on the list with people like colombia and dubai and the only other region in the us was in california was the napa valley so this was a real real coup for us the local writer christine o'toole that wrote this piece she's fabulous she's a friend she really captured what pittsburgh's all about we love the photo it is one of those things that people think of when they think of us but they don't realize that that's the steel mills aren't here anymore here are some other things that they say about us most livable as as margaret mentioned at least three you remember back in the eighty's when we were named the most livable city by rand mcnally and people  well we continue to to be named that and nerd wallet which another one of those nerdy says we're great place for activities recreational forbes thinks we're very romantic independent traveler says it's a place that you might not have thought of but you should and what's interesting that people really like about us is our quirkiness you know when you travel people like the weird these days not totally weird but what's unusual what makes pittsburgh different than other places and these are some of those fun facts that you know when you get on the just ducky tour they tell you all these things we have four hundred forty six bridges i hear it's more than any other city in the world including venice i think they must be counting those little foot bridges too but four hundred forty six we have the new great allegheny passage that was finished last year connects us to washington d c that's very unique the robotics institute at cmu first in the world stainless steel was invented here the radio broadcast phonograph records katie kaye radio the first ball game the first church service heard over the air and we are hollywood on the mon it was where hollywood and movies began where here in pittsburgh misses a picture of of when that man advantage of that we talk about that we do a lot of research we learned we just did some branding research any of you in marketing or advertising you've heard of branding everybody thinks that means like a logo and a tagline but branding is really about the essence of this place and we learned from people who who are traveling here that they really love the fact that we have this industrial heritage you know a lot of times in our business we're sort of who we don't talk about steel you know that's gone people don't know i think it's still here and it's not it's that still what we are it's the essence of where we came from and we use that essence that history to be more welcoming to people to be friendly to people that's the one thing we hear about pittsburgh is it every bit of research we do how nice everyone is there and so we use that as part of our part of our brand people love our natural beauty they love our sports teams are they love that we love our sports teams or they hate us because we love our sports team depends on where you're from so we've talked about what gets people from the outside to pay attention to pittsburgh this is what we're talking about today staycation this is new or came about around the middle to thousands it was people have always sort of stayed home to do vacations i i know we used to ask friends back when i worked at the symphony where you go on a vacation i'm just staying home so we call that porch ville and i'm going to portugal this is like going to porch ville a staycation is a combination of vacationing and staying in one's hometown it could be you could stay in your house or you could still go to a hotel or b and b or resort so we're going to talk about staycation and let's start with the easy stuff what's free now i'm going to talk a lot about things that pittsburgh has to offer a lot of you are going to know these things you've been to them you've heard of them you might learn about some things you haven't heard of i don't have a lot of hidden treasures but there's a few in here and these are some of those hidden treasures that you might not be aware of all of these are vailable on our web site and you can learn more about them and i'm going to give you the name of another website that has much more detail on things that are happening i do want to read you one little letter from a friend i don't know she heard i was doing this today but last week i got this email from my friend and she's staying goals and angie's to work girl scout she's now the executive director of the american society of regional anesthesia and pain medicine and she's from mount lebanon she says i hope this finds you well my family vacation in pittsburgh this and we had a great time we commuted by t to the sheraton station square which became our home for the weekend waited several restaurants and stations square took a just ducky to our road the gateway clipper twice to two different baseball games visited carnegie science center and sports works and hung out in market square my husband and i facebook many pictures and all of the pittsburghers enjoyed following our staycation several families from church and work are now planning their own vacation in pittsburgh i thought you'd like to know that there is a great opportunity promote the city to those who live in the immediate vicinity i live in eleven to so angie just did what we're going to talk about and she did it last week and anybody can do this it's pretty simple when you plan your vacation your yearly vacation or just weeks the little breaks away what do you do you look for deals you ask your family you want to try something new do you want to do it we always do these are questions you can ask when you're here in pittsburgh and some of the things that that you could do are free these are our music attractions in general and you can see all of these we have the gallery crawl which i think was last night and not the greatest weather for a gallery crawl but we do those four times a year in the cultural district you walk around look at art talk to people it's very fun for a card at noon public art tours glassblowing at the pittsburgh last center galleries like wood street gallery and  space gallery downtown are open free jazz live is done at the cultural district on tuesdays it's a free jazz offering in the winter it's inside and in the summer they have it out and catch plaza those are fun nothing else again observatory there's an architecture tour we're going to talk about that in a little bit the fort pitt block house has always been that's the oldest building and in pittsburgh and in the county and it's two hundred fifty years old this year but you can take a look in there without having to pay the old allegheny county jail if you want to feel what it was like to use to be in jail back in the day you can do that down at the courthouse soldiers and sailors is another great place that you can get in free some of these places ask for a  donation and you should feel you know how you feel about that you don't have to give but if you would it help support then also what free wireless downtown you can get free wireless internet for two two hours a day  you can ride the t t for free in town there's a free ride zone there's a map of it in our visitor's guide will talk about that and all the trails you can walk from one end of town to the other along the rivers in through town and on street parking on sundays i think that was a holdover from and  i mentioned radical days here this is a regional acid district provides once a year rad they call it rad days at various attractions the zoo the history center the science center most of the of the  funded by rad that's that extra one percent tax you pay in allegheny county those stay open and are free to the public once a year it's usually in the fall and then the architectural walking tours are fast we're going to talk about those in a little bit as well the other thing people come here for are events these are like the g twenty events except they're not conventions these are these are big events that we have regularly either annually or or every few years combo they are quote the beatles of puerto rico and there's nineteen of them not like the beatles we're only four so to bring them in is a half of planes worth but we're really excited about inviting them to pittsburgh the constellation senior players tournament is in is it fox chapel country club in in august so there's other things the e q to regatta restaurant week and have you ever take partake of restaurant week we do two of them a year the summer one is august eleventh eleven through seventeen fifteen is world class dining this is one of the great opportunities to sort of test out restaurants that you might not have tried before a fraction of the vintage grand prix another one that comes every year same with the irish festival which all is in september and then this p and g gymnastics championship this is this is a pretty important  event it's one that we've worked on for quite a few years to get here it features the best male and female gymnastics and it determines the u s champions a national team for the world championships and it's the first time it's been here since two thousand one and only the fourth time since the seventy's so it's a big deal now this is kind of i call this a con adventure because it's a convention and an event they are having a trade show at the convention center for all people who are into gymnastics and then they're having the championships at consult an edgy center so they'll be gin this and their families all over the place and that's the weekend of august twenty one through twenty four so come into town and check that out there be doing like yoga in the morning and it's all going to be all about healthy eating and healthy little lifestyles and you can see how cute they are and it should be a it should be a great event i'm going to ask you if you would mind taking out this little piece out of your goodie bag this is our visitor's guide and i mentioned earlier this is kind of our bible if you were walking around with a website about pittsburgh it would be this we were saying earlier how we still like printed pieces if you still like to flip through and look at things and smell the ink like i do this is this is a piece for you we do this every year comes out in january it's the annual guide to what's happening in pittsburgh it's also really more about what are the amenities of pittsburgh this is a piece that when people call us and say i want i'm thinking about coming to pittsburgh i don't know i'm not sure what there is to do there we get we send them this the reason that this is a little different than other publications it has all our hotels offered in here  so the hotels are really the first step people tend to want to make once they determine the that they're going to come here they have to get a hotel room and so this this features hotels as well as attractions we're going to as we walk through some of these things  i'm going to point out some of the pages in here so when i talk about events there on page five that's sort of the rundown of the annual events the biggest events that are happening in pittsburgh this year we've already gone through quite a few of them the parades and the soup contests and things like that but where to we just had the silkscreen film festival begin last night art all night is this weekend as well so you can see some of the big things that are coming up to sit good thing to follow along if you're into going to events or you have people who are coming to visit or you want to take a staycation based on one of these events i can see that i got this constellation senior players dates completely wrong a june twenty sixth or twenty ninth so this is really a good a good guide for for you i want you to flip over to page seven the we're going to talk about tours we're talking about two hours earlier somebody asked about bird bits and bytes this is a this is one of the newer tours and as i said been with visit pittsburgh for fifteen years so as tours happen and we start to see more of these kinds of things we realize that we really are a tourism destination when there are companies that can make a business out of taking people around and showing the pittsburgh we know we're in the big leagues so these are some of the tours and you can you can read through them here there's every which way to do a tour in pittsburgh on foot by bike on a segway you can see if anybody ever ridden a segway is it scary now because i feel like i would do one of these routines on it but i've never i've one of the girls in our office did a video on it and it was really it was really great but petty cabs a my ever taken a petty cab where they you know it's like and yet those are fun you know the owner  guy great guy he's opening a hostel down in the south side where we're really excited he's a he's one of those young up and comers there's a few of those in town that start businesses and they really they know what they're doing  right we ran out a gift bags we brought forty and there's more of you than that so i will send some gift bags over to the library when i get back on monday and we'll have them here for you i have one extra one here that i can give afterwards i'm using it's kind of like my my little yes and there are some we're going to give out some raffle prizes later but the gift bags we will definitely make sure that everybody who wants one can can get one please if you have questions during this please yell them out if you have things you want to say that you've been there you've done that or you'd like to try something you know let me know the there's so many different tours as i mentioned still heritage the  rivers a steel does some tours of what are still heritage is about you can go down to the eliza furnace there's a tour called babushkas and hard hats there and they're all listed in here so you gives you a good idea of there's a lot of a lot of companies that are doing for transportation groups actually opened their own version of of a tour company lends their tours you've probably heard of they've been around for seventy five years molly's trolley most people know them from weddings but they are a great tour opportunity gateway  clipper if you haven't done that take that on the river and they explain what pittsburgh's about from the rivers point of view as well as just ducky somebody how many people have done the just ducky to our very popular you quack and people along the way yes yes absolutely that is such a success story these two guys brothers came in bought one chance to be a vehicle next year to next year three now i think they have five or six vehicles and they are packed i mean i see them coming down the streets in a quack and everybody it's  picture history and landmarks and office of public art these are two opportunities to do your own self guided walking tours this is the little booklet that goes along with the public art tour i want to pass around and we have these at our visitor center this is a tremendous if you love art or you just love walking around town and sort of discovering things this little booklet is is for you and they're free it are welcome center and it is  a very well done piece you can also take guided tours of public art and the office of public art which is run through the city and through the greater pittsburgh arts council they do tours of all different parts of the city particularly focused on the art yes we have seven of them but the one that easiest and has the most stuff is downtown in our office at fifth avenue place so the high mark building but there's one at the airport there's there aren't a whole lot out this way the in the duquesne incline has a welcome center greengrocers petit cabs on first avenue has one this one and southside we need to probably open one out this way we're looking to open one in the east end this year it's just a great way for you to be able to pick up materials but the one in in the well and fifth avenue place is also a gift shop so some of the stuff that i'm going to give out are things that we sell  there as well so let me tell you about byrd bits and bytes sylvia mccoy she's a pittsburgher she's from out this way i don't anyone know sylvia she started this business a few years ago just one food tour and it's the one i'm going to talk about it's the strip district market tour she does this fridays an occasional occasionally on mondays and thursdays she can also schedule them for private groups they start at ten o'clock and at one thirty they're about two hours it's a walking tour the meet in the strip district at st patrick's that's a church where you go up to the altar on your knees ouch and the tour takes place rain or shine she says to wear comfortable clothes because you can eat a lot particularly on your feet because you're going to walk a lot as well about ten people per tour they do take larger tours but they ask you to get in touch with them first and the food is what you taste as you go she stops at different places in the strip and she does it's a food tasting there's water provided in the tastings or service part of the tour it's thirty seven dollars a ticket and you can purchase them online from bird bits and bytes sylvia also now has expanded this is been very successful she has tours now of brookline bloomfield dorm on lawrenceville and i think she's added more tour guides it's a very very successful tour program and if you like to eat it's and learn about pittsburgh food i also met somebody new last week who does an italian garden tour walking tour and so there are new products coming on constantly the one that is brand new this year is this lights camera pittsburgh this is being offered by pittsburgh transportation group there's a picture of it in the guide it is back behind the scenes location shots they're going to go to thirty first street studios in the strip district show you where movies are made in pittsburgh it's such a big  business if you see donkeys or she was on w q e d the other night talking about the tax credits that the state gives for movie making it's a huge business for pittsburgh and it puts a lot of people to work and it's fun to see when the movies come out so just horrible take you around and show you some of those locations all right we're going to segue to come out baby there we go sports and i can't give a talk about pittsburgh and not talk about sports right leader this is this is the ad that's on the back of our actually we've changed the people at the cheerleader this year is actually cheering this was last year's abbott but it is what we are we hear a lot about this when we do research i told you you know people either love us or hate us for our sports teams but people realize that we have a passion and we're proud of our of our sports teams from the pirates penguins steelers to the river hallums to the power and the pride and all the college and universities and one place you can go to to really understand all of the history of pittsburgh sports is the western p a sports museum at the history center fabulous place take people there it gives them a really good understanding of why pittsburgh is a city of champions and we could talk about sports right now without talking about a buck as it is one of the best ballparks in the country and named so in many different places this is travel and leisure magazine fox sports as well sporting news i think margaret said as well as e s p n you go to a game it doesn't really matter what happens on the field least not right now and it's a great experience this is a this is been a boon for us from a travel standpoint because visiting teams fans come here and they spend a lot of money so it is one of the things we encourage you to think about doing the summer we also market pittsburgh as kids burg i don't know if you realize how many family attractions you know you might know the big ones a zoo kennywood children's museum there's quite a few of them and we actually visit pittsburgh package this into a into a bundle of goodies you can buy family attraction tickets at half price you can get a hotel overnight and for every overnight that you book on our website you get agree get g card for twenty five dollars per night yes  yes yes that's this one that's that's that one right there yes the great hall in times field in p and c park both great tours and sometimes i'll even let you go on the field at least get your foot near the grass if you're lucky enough but kids are is a program that if you are if you have a family or you know kids grandkids and you want to sort of do this staycation  very inexpensive way to do it and you get some free fuel as part of the deal these are the places that are included in the kids for package the science center the aviary children's museum in the middle is  museum of natural history fits conservatory incline the zoo kennywood and history center so you can pick from any one of these you don't have to buy all of them but the prices are very very very reasonable as i think one of the few discounts that kennywood gives  that's pretty deep and all of these places have some great shows this summer the history center just opened a new show called the treasures of the steamboat arabia some really interesting stories anybody read this in the paper last few days it is if you love history this is like hermetically sealed history this is a boat that left pittsburgh filled with all this merchandise and supplies for people out on the frontiers  it's this high i guess happened a lot back in the eight hundred eight hundred seventy s but it sunk in the missouri river and when it sunk it basically stayed there for one hundred thirty years till this family found it dug it up and all the things that they dug up were all from pittsburgh pickles dishes shoes clothes so the history center has this all on display now until january so recommend you take a look at that if you love history and you love pittsburgh stuff it's really really a great show the carnegie science center has some some obviously one of the great places and you know most of their you know the wreck when sports works planetarium they have a couple great shows  robo world and bikes are both really great these are for your kids in the family that are kind of techie science the kind of kids they're on the show right now it's called jerusalem it's fabulous it's conservatory i was asking has anybody been to phipps lately and if you've been to the center for sustainable landscapes that's the new building this is a this this is one of the big stories right now where we get a lot of publicity about sustainability and how we've greened pittsburgh from the the smoky city this building has itself twenty different things on here that they do that's really unique it makes it the most sustainable building in the world rainwater harvesting a green roof or turbine natural ventilation minimally conditioned air ventilation lagoon system constructed wetland mean if if this is your thing if that turns john i suggest you take a take a trip over to phipps because it's a it's really really we're seeing the aviary has some new shows this year canaries call which is a new show which it's weird it's a called canary call but the thing that's really cool about it are these bats that they brought anyone  and their flights in theaters open a few years ago which are fabulous they change often so if you are a frequent goer to the aviary and that's one of those jewels of pittsburgh that it's been here forever you know i did it when i was in fourth grade well do it again because it's really changed it's a it's a great place they've redone a lot of the exit exam exhibit areas it's worth taking a look at carnegie museum of natural history they have a great program this year right now called race are we why are we so different it's very interesting it's a perspective unprecedented examination of race and racism in the united states a little heavy but very very very interesting children's museum has a has a exhibition now called  letters teaches kids how to write a letter the old fashioned way with paper and pencil and who would you write to and what would you say using traditional hand lettering and they teach kids how to write a letter you know perfect the pittsburgh zulu obviously one of the the most popular places in pittsburgh they have that just read today they got a new baby seal that that was they found and that is not i mean they do such great work kennywood nothing a kennywood no big new roller coasters or anything this year but always fun and lots of food we love those fries we talked about the speech arabia here some other things that pittsburgh is wonderful at we're great we do good arts arts are really important to us it's the legacy of our industrial heritage it's what our forefathers left behind for us it's the andy warhol twentieth anniversary you remember when the which i class of water ok there's some water right here if you'd like  so take a look it's it's a new andy warhol museum i could mention seventeen other great attractions that are visual arts the carnegie museums obviously the frick one of the best collections around obviously  the mattress factory if you love contemporary art they've got some really great pieces the tunes e n has anyone heard of the tunes e m that's right on the main drag in liberty avenue it's a it's a museum of cartoon art and the guy that runs it is a cartoon artist but he's collected all these beautiful pieces he's got because it's one of the few places like it in the country she's got great reputation around the country the galleries that would street and space and then the outdoor sculptures as i was mentioning earlier we also do performing arts really well it's one of the top performing arts centers and in the country the cultural district is fourteen square blocks we have sixteen downtown theater companies that play in the cultural  district there's ten performance spaces in that fourteen block area but it's not just limited to to the cultural district there are other companies outside of downtown our should classical theater the city theater the kelly strayhorn theater  great shows that put on by people like the river city brass band in the pit for example who come out of downtown and dupe programs all over the place not to mention all the regional theater i know us theater out here as well and those all are great companies  that send visitors into this into the city as well to the shows like this broadway series and c l o those are sort of the ones that stand to get more of the attention but there's some really creative things going on patrol rising classical theater maybe one of the more creative theatre companies they play in the oakland at the stephen foster memorial pittsburgh irish and classical theater they play in the summer which is kind of unusual most performing arts start in the fall and in the spring when visitors are here from may until august there's not a lot for them to do for the performing arts e l o is one and irish in classical theater is another this is some of our history and heritage places to visit i mention the fort pitt block house and the fort pitt museum two hundred fifty years old the history center i mentioned earlier the frick art and historical center not only does the frick have great art but they have this fabulous house the clayton and they went into clayton gorgeous any time of year usually at christmas time and it tends to have more of a visitation because they really decorate it but a great place to walk around yes yeah the cafe is great you make plans to do that make a reservation because sometimes it gets pretty busy and they're they're doing a whole new renovation as well they're adding a new welcome center and they're they're expanding their visitor services so all these things continue they've been here for a long time but they continue to get better better this is one of our new hunger project products in pittsburgh is out there recreation and my boss who who was the old boss of his pictures to say oh we don't need to market those people they never spending money on a place to put their wallet because they're all wearing spandex but i will tell you these people spend money they've spent a lot of money on their bikes and they spend a lot of money on on their quitman and they like to do all the other things that people like to do in pittsburgh sure they'll ride the rivers they'll take the trails that walk  their bike but in the end they still like to shop based elected dine there's some new things that have come on this tree top zip line a place called go ape anyone done that in north park scares me but i think it's probably really cool in this venture outdoors is maybe one of the best outdoor recreation organizations around they are the ones that rent the kayaks and that's very fun and you can do that right under the roberta comment a bridge by the by rec is a huge and now the ultimate this is the ultimate spot everyone who comes here does this either this or the monk monic climb but i know these guys that this is a nonprofit that runs the duquesne incline they track their their their riders they get over half a million riders on that incline every year it is an amazing thing it's one of the things everybody thinks about when they think of pittsburgh if you haven't been on it lately it's still fun i still see kids that cry when they got it because i think it's going to drop like a like a roller coaster don't cry it takes three minutes to get down there but the reason they come up and down is because of this and now we have the fountain at the point back  great to walk down to the point in and see the fountain we wish we had that rubber duck all year around two boys that really brought people in but it is one of the top most beautiful places in the world to see at night according to usa today weekend magazine and we're so happy also that we have lots of other downtowns besides just downtown pittsburgh there are ninety nine eight hoods in pittsburgh you know some of them there some up here i'd never heard of i've never heard of fairy wood or marketed you know they don't even know it's there right and what part of the thing is we need partners like there has to be somebody there who passionate who wants to work with us and want to get visitors there some neighborhoods don't want visitors you know i anybody you know i don't want anybody coming up here so you know it's it has to come from the community it has to build up from the community i live in that washington's obviously big tourism but i live in the back i'm out washington in chatham village which is kind of a you know a little enclave and we don't really want visitors back here but it's one of the great architectural gems and so you know we're always encouraging people to come back and see what was back there the other summer there some unique little spots in town my friend just bought a house in greenfield what have you like i never knew that was up there so there are little jewels if you get your car and drive around you'll see some of these things what's neat about most of them is that they are their own little downtown places where you can shop and walk around and get to know the people and everybody's really nice to talk about day trips for a second obviously we're not just about allegheny county we're talk about the pittsburgh region people who visit here don't know the difference between green county and butler county beaver county and indiana county and allegheny county these are some of that are closer out this way meadowcroft rock shelter old economy which is in beaver county great places to visit if you love history the rock shelter is a jewel as one of the things most people don't know anything about one of the oldest  finds of human and human habitation in the north american continent it's in a vella which is not far from here we're in it's washington county and they habitation particularly native americans back from i think it's like ten thousand years ago other day trips the who knows that orange county is the fireworks capital of america because they have like ten different families to do fireworks besides in belize so they take advantage of that they market themselves that way they have a great fireworks festival every year they also have a mish in violent amish are still very popular with visitors we get a lot of questions about the amish these are honest you're a little bit more staunch than the lancaster amish they're little bit more shy about publicity but they do welcome you to their community because you come in you spend money you buy their stuff  there's a amish community as well as an indiana county they drive a different color buggy that's how you know the difference i learned these things laurel highlands great place for outdoor adventure the high zero pile the great allegheny passage one of the great new additions to pittsburgh that connection between now pittsburgh through the large highlands to cumberland maryland all the way down to d c and he bike riders in the in the group i've ridden a bike twice in the last two years and both times i fell and broke my wrist so i am not right in the great allegheny passage i was training so that i could get on well that's not going to happen but it is biking is one of the hot things in pittsburgh right now because you can you can ride twenty four miles of  bike trails in downtown you have trails out here too that all of these trails are starting to connect so you can get anywhere pretty much without going on a road to the white water rafting always a little scary for those of us are not adventurous but fun and that of course thank god for frank lloyd wright i mean what what why were we so lucky to not only get fallingwater but can talk knob and also now you can actually stay in a frank lloyd wright home it's called the duncan house it's in near donegal i just saw last night on line it's like one hundred ninety nine dollars to stay and you actually are in a home that was designed it's one those you sony in homes in something called polymath park which is a was a was a design community of frank lloyd wright either he designed them or some of his student designs fascinating so part of that whole immersion into frank lloyd wright you can do this in la highlands not that far away from from us right now but one of the most fantastic buildings in the world right here on our doorstep let's talk real quickly about some of the and mark how might do for time ok hotels ok so i want you to go stay in a hotel because i want you to spend  seven percent tax because two percent of that seven percent comes back and helps us continue to market pittsburgh so if you're going to do a staycation do it like my friend and she did drop your car take the t v find a hotel get around town stay like you're going away  make you feel like you really taken a break from your day to day there are so many hotels and pittsburgh i have some statistics here that started actually as one of the hottest hotel markets in the country hard to believe but it's because people are staying in hotels where the highest occupancy of our competitive cities these are cities like memphis baltimore charlotte detroit milwaukee indianapolis cleveland we rise above all and yes we do have bed and breakfast and there's a bed and breakfast group that markets themselves collectively there's quite a number on the north side there's a couple beautiful ones and there are all there's concerted hidden in neighborhoods a few in shadyside there's one in south there's there's one southside there's a few out this way as well but you have to dig for them you've got it in google you have to really look bed and breakfasts of pittsburgh and there is a group they don't really market themselves individually it's more as a as a collection yes yes i mean i'm not a b and b guy could like in the morning i don't want to talk to anybody right i'm not good at like seven o'clock in the morning when everybody's cheery and but if you are and you like that kind of lifestyle there are some really great opportunities here we don't market by breakfast as much as we should they're actually marketed better out and in the countryside because there's more of them they're more quaint not that there's anything wrong with our b and b s they're absolutely beautiful but it is it does take a certain the i think one of the ones that we don't really refer to it as a b and b it's more like and in is the priory on the north side that place is very popular that's a family that knows how to do hospitality and it is an option away from the usual typical hotels i want to ask how many people from it give me an idea how many hotel rooms you think are in the pittsburgh metro area just as it just to give me a shout out how many rooms do you think there are in pittsburgh how many twenty five thousand hotel rooms in our metro area yeah downtown there's forty five hundred just in downtown in allegheny county there's sixteen thousand so we've got a lot of hotels you don't realize it because they're in the way little places but they're filled at sixty eight percent occupied across that whole metro area so that means every night there's somebody staying in those hotels and they're spending money and there's a bunch of them coming online in the next two years there's thirteen hotels being built right now on in matlab and i noticed there and when they are finished within the next two years they'll be two thousand more rooms to add to the so we're talking about a hot market for hotels anything from embassy suites to canton hotels there's a ace hotel coming in a hotel indigo there's some real neat boutique hotels happening there's a lot going on in the hotel industry and it is worth keeping an eye on because those places tend to bring good deals with them you can find deals i will say hotel rates and downtown if you've ever tried to stay or you're putting somebody downtown they're kind of high they've got they've grown they've gone up a lot in the last few years and there's one reason for at the fairmont hotel when the fairmont hotel came in they brought a higher rate and everybody else in town was able to raise their rates because of it they are they are one of the great hotel chains in the world we're so lucky to have them they're great partners and they have a good product and they know what to do with it and it's helped the entire downtown community you know sometimes i think other competitors coming in they're going to ruin our whole know they've made the place a better place and they have a great habitat yes one of the best yet when we're going t restaurants here in a minute as well the hotels here we talk dining now i was going to give you a rundown of some of the crazy new restaurants that are in pittsburgh where some they got crazy names and i can't remember them all and you probably have heard of some of  lamont one of the one of the great all time ones then there's the ones that are all named after numbers tavern two forty five route one seventy four tas a twenty one lat seventeen eleven nine nine child to an e squared so there's there are a lot of them and then why are there a lot of them because people are going out to eat and visitors are going out to eat that's not one of the number one things they like to do when they visit so great restaurants and are good friends the primary sandwiches think you great grand concourse kind of went down for a while back up still still has that great martha's vineyard salad that you remember from your your days of courting and then sit down eat it's the called the conflict kitchen it's in the eastend near a slit in the celebrity it's very cool shopping who doesn't like to shop where visitors love to shop that's for cultural tour it's the number one thing they do yeah they like to go to museums and they like to shop and we have every kind of shopping imaginable malls outlets you know high end men's clothes boutiques candy stores it is it is a shoppers paradise and one thing that we really market a lot is that there's no tax on clothes yet you ever get mail when you go to like new york and you buy san diego what there's tax on clothes it's a big thing you ever see people go to growth city and they're bringing they're bringing their suitcases with them because they're they're coming from mostly from canada where tax on clothes is ridiculous so they make a they make a killing when they come down here and we promote that we also promote the drinkers  this wiggle whiskey i don't i don't have a big alcohol fan but they say this stuff is really good they tell a great story to they tell the story of the whiskey rebellion you can two tours of the way of wiggle with you they've actually grown so much they're moving into a new space over in the north  this is on the south side and it will as i say though they're moving to the north side and it is very very popular right on penn avenue and then there's the pittsburgh winery never been there penn burry they've been around a while a lot there oh ok yeah well seeds and i we we learned about the scene where one girl in our office she gets talked all the restaurants she knows every restaurant or she knows every place to eat if you want to know like hey colleen should i go to such and such casinos and this this these are all again all coming on because there's business there and then there's nightlife you know we all like to after we've eaten shop didn't drank again then we can go party all night if we  want restaurants bars and then of course a place that never closes rivers casino and you have casinos out this way to casinos tend to not market to visitors they tend to market more regionally they're not pulling in people from because gaming is everywhere now  when it was unique you know linux city was sucking us all in but now it's practically all around us so rivers is a really good partner but they're not really pulling in people from outside the region transportation how to get around when you do your staycation you can be like angie and take the t and use that it's free and in town you can ride all over you can go the north side you can pick it up right here and head into town and you don't need your car when you get into town you can rent bikes my friends that golden triangle bike rentals be happy to set you up on a bike because your transportation group as i mentioned have all different ways of getting around we have some of these new ride sharing programs i bet you guys in the back might have heard of some of the it's  e lift lift and hoover yeah the one with the mustache if you see the a twelve there they're trying to work out of way to make it so that there's an even playing field because they're not really regulated under the p c like like the cabs are so there's got to be rules to this ok well i have friends who do it because it's the all you do it through your cell phone yes all over the place that were new to it and we're trying to figure it out and built to do though is pro ride share so we're going to we're going to keep going get your g p s mine didn't work today but you can get anywhere now you know yes ah same with the inclines too because they're they're both run by the port authority so it's easy to get around you know there's no cans i don't know what it's we can get around ok guys and maps these are some of the things that we gave you this map is oakland and downtown although the tractions are listed it's pretty how many people are map people i map i can't go anywhere without picking up a map and like where and what direction i might be going in and i walk out of the hotel and i've no idea where i am but these are you know our city is not the easiest place to get around in because it's got that weird triangle thing happening but this this map is like  it's my love and my paint because i always get something wrong you know we just printed the new one you know i put the t stop in the wrong place oh my god up to reprint a hundred fifty thousand you know what happens is a very detailed little things but you know with all this online stuff now these are going away as well but they're still you still need to like pull that map out when you're walking around a town play magazine i'm sorry that this is like two days away from being useless this  the january through april issue but the new one will come out on monday from may through august this piece is really for once you've gotten here you know once you've decided to come in what am i going to do what's going on what are the shows when is the benetton center open how do i buy tickets it's really sort of the little bible for the arrival you made here and these are everywhere you can pick these up we'd be happy to send some over here to the library regularly so that you you know your folks can pick them up but these guys and this is our brand new map which again is just coming out that's the one that i miss printed yeah that's my life visit for dot com that's the other side of our lives now too while these printed materials are now instantly available all the info plus plus plus plus plus all available online and through a mobile web site visit pittsburgh dot mobi we don't have an app and all you youngsters in the back like no apps because we can't figure out what our app should be most of our our our colleagues around the country have done apps are very expensive to do but they don't really do anything fun they don't they basically just replicate what you already have online we're trying to figure out what would be a fun app for pittsburgh so if you have any ideas please send them our way but this is really the most up to date events around here if you have events and you want to publicize them put them on this this calendar you click on events and then that says submit an event you don't have to pay anything we put them up and everybody looks at that event calendar that's the thing both pittsburghers and visitors do because it's very up to date and very very reputable we get one point three million visitors to our sites we also are in the social media world we have a digital marketing person at the airport say that like two out of all of you ok how embarrassing it's been there since the day the airport opened its underneath the escalators nobody knows it's back there well we're just about to move it out into the world where when you come down the escalators for it would to get your bags will be right there so keep be on the lookout should happen by the end of may just in time for summer season we're so excited the woman who runs our welcome sir at the airport like can i get to talk to people because she said back there and nobody talks or except  ask her where the bathroom is so the welcome center up in the top corner in the in the left there that's the one downtown lots of goodies and we're going to give away some of those we have seven of them and they're all different and fun and cool and that's where you can pick up stuff about pittsburgh  they're all listed in the very first page of the visitor's guide at the the one right across from the duck snow next page right here and all the hours are there and you know what you're making me think that we need to get something more out this way because we really don't have a presence in the cell if you're into telling other people about your travels these are some ways to do that trip advisor with the travel yelp anybody look yelp when you're looking for a restaurant it's very good now i've heard it's kind of fixed and i've heard all kinds of weird stuff about it but i still if i need an idea it's where i go and it has everything every restaurant rated but people say what food is good when their hours are where it is on the map i mean it's a really really good source for for finding out about food all right questions yes shar beautiful place say no matter if you have anybody on to interest there's a book just with where the terrible towel has been and it's all over the world i mean it's been in the you know on top of the eiffel tower and under the ocean i mean you yeah it's great and you know what the other thing is you can be anywhere in the world i'm telling you anywhere in the world and what do you see on every table in every restaurant around the world high catch up from pittsburgh and they are like what you're from there you know you can't go in the in anymore but they still do tours they have a they have a room when you walk into the factory you can still see and they sell merchandise let's i gave you some it's a little shoe strings from there but yeah yeah they're going to keep the  name i mean it's a tradition yes  that'll be a big draw wow and every night is it every night does like what bill used to do that that's cool and people come from all over for that yeah right and sometimes that stuff happens when i'm aware of it because it's sort of grassroots it's underground they they promoted themselves they don't really need us to help and people can go let's go around town and i don't know oh it's them it's the billy graham crusade ok yes right right they were just here this week nuns everywhere and i'm telling you those nuns can drink i walk by sharp edge you know i'm walking down i look and there's these habits and they're all thrown back si of like oh yeah the restaurants down in that area loved les loved the the the catholics yes you know now you know we we find that people rate pretty safe place there's not a lot of fear in particularly in downtown tripoli on nights and there's a lot going on you know when it's a quiet night like a monday night i come out of work sometimes late it's like this kind of creep because there's no one around it's not a city where a lot of people live in town that's changing so but i've never i've been here i've lived in the city basically my whole adult life and i've never had any real problems now of course things happen but i don't think there's any place like a point i think it closes like after ten o'clock i don't think you can really hang out down there late at night the point is actually one of the safer places now because they finally have rangers that are patrolling that area when they put the new  fountain in they hired a staff to take care of it which is really smart that's all through the state  no it is when you get out by the by the fountain you're really far away from the city but you really feel like you're out out you know where they where the explorers left front and that's where lewis and clark you know that's where it began right there it's beautiful and it's worth taking a walk out there and it really is you go under that portal bridge and people think that's kind of creepy it's not it's not it's really very safe well you know you're competing with you guys you know in the suburbs you can park for free you know there's a million different stores to choose from and it's been calm it's become an issue for our downtown partnership they're the ones that really deal with the businesses but they've made a real effort to try to if you get people who are living in town they're going to need to shop in town we're trying to get a grocery store in p g play finally after all these years because people who live in town i mean where to go get groceries and they're going to track down to the strip district to get their bananas you know they need a place to go so i think it's just a matter of volume and christmas time you notice how they always make parking free because we can't compete without with you with you guys out here yes they say in pittsburgh most people forget this but you need to look up fabulous they do a tour now it's the part for history landmarks we did it last year and it starts up by william penn and ends up down by p g and it's a it's a full couple hour tour go on paid for history and landmarks website they list all their tours they have free ones you can self guide or take a guided tour and these mostly these are architects who have to sort of speak our language you know they start talking about stuff we're like we talk like we do because this is the really we have saved and thanks to pitch for history landmark saves a lot of architecture in the city because it could have been urban renewal and you know everything would have gone so we're  really lucky that way thank you yeah yeah right behind chapel on the right to next to each other yeah yeah those are great great thought you must be in architecture those are great tours so if i haven't heard a little bit of your interest in staycation ing think about it and come up and see me after i have a couple business cards here but you can always get in touch with me