Ep 52 - The Case for Meaningful Travel
Kylie Diaz, VP of Community Engagement at Visit St. Pete Clearwater, brings a refreshingly mission-driven perspective to this Destination Florida conversation. She oversees the DMO's capital funding program, its chambers, and a partner base of roughly 4,000 — and she makes a compelling case for how tourism quietly powers a community. Pinellas County collects north of $90 million in bed tax annually (paid by visitors, not residents), and Kylie is the person who helps reinvest it: about $26 million last year alone into museums, attractions, sports arenas, and beach parks, plus a $100 million commitment to beach renourishment after the 2024 storms — literally putting sand back on the beaches.
The through-line of the episode is "meaningful travel." Kylie's passion traces back to a formative post-9/11 trip to Malaysia and Borneo, where she witnessed both transformative travel and mass deforestation, and learned how a destination responds in a crisis. That ethos now shapes her work — from a new partnership with Tourism Cares to connect visitors with a destination's people, culture, and environment, to six mission-driven years at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where tourism was "the engine that fueled the conservation work." She closes on the theme she says she'll be telling stories about for the rest of her life: the power of partnerships. It's a warm, values-forward look at hospitality as a genuine career and tourism as a force for community good.
In This Episode:
- 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
- 02:43 - Meaningful Travel Efforts at Visit St. Pete Clearwater
- 06:07 - The Impact of Tourism on Conservation
- 11:19 - Exploring Opportunities in Hospitality
- 13:52 - The Power of Partnerships
Key Takeaways:
- Tourism funds the community. Pinellas County's $90M+ annual bed tax — paid by visitors, not residents — gets reinvested into museums, attractions, arenas, and beach parks, with roughly $26M distributed last year through the capital funding program Kylie oversees.
- $100 million for beach renourishment. After the 2024 storms, the destination committed $100M to literally put sand back on its beaches — a striking example of visitor dollars protecting the core asset.
- "Meaningful travel" is the trend she's betting on. Through a partnership with Tourism Cares, Visit St. Pete Clearwater is helping travelers connect more deeply with a destination's people, culture, history, and environment — experiences you take home and remember.
- Mission-driven marketing, learned firsthand. At the Clearwater Marine Aquarium (rescue, rehab, release), Kylie saw tourism as the engine funding conservation — marketing rooted in authenticity and emotional connection, not just visitation.
- A formative crucible: Malaysia and Borneo. A post-9/11 trip filming a travel show taught her transformative travel, environmental stewardship (amid mass deforestation), and crisis response for a destination — lessons that still drive her.
- Hospitality is an underrated career. Kylie and the DMO curated a college course with St. Pete College to show students that hospitality means marketing, film, aquariums, and more — not just front desks and restaurants.
- The common thread: the power of partnerships. Her most creative projects came from matching one partner's need with another's resource — the metric she ultimately measures success by (partner happiness + return visitation).
- The destination is bigger than its headliners. Beyond St. Pete and Clearwater, gems like Dunedin, Safety Harbor, Tarpon Springs, and Gulfport make Pinellas a place you could explore for weeks.
Transcript
Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.
Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.
Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.
Larry Aldrich:Welcome back to Aqua Talk, sponsored by Brennsys Technology LLC and Xeniq. We're here for the next few days at Destination Florida in Bradenton. We will be speaking with Quite a few DMOs.
Stay tuned for a lot of good conversations coming up. Thanks. Thanks for joining us again at Aqua Talks. We're still at Destination Florida. We are joined with Kayak. See, we're joined.
We're joined with Kylie Diaz, senior vice president of Community engagement at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. Hello, Kylie. How are you today?
Kylie Diaz:Good. Thank you for having me.
Larry Aldrich:Okay. We want to tell a little bit about yourself, your background, what you do at Visit St. Pete Clearwater.
Kylie Diaz:At Visit St. Pete Clearwater, I am in charge of community engagement and that covers a few areas. So I am in charge of our capital funding program. I also oversee our chambers. We have a partner base of about 4,000 people.
So I oversee all of our partner base. And we just have a lot of fun. We've got a great team over there under the leadership of our president and CEO, Brian Loak.
Narrator:Okay.
Larry Aldrich:We first met, I believe, was it the Governor's Conference or Destination Florida last year?
Kylie Diaz:One of the two. Yeah.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah. And you were, you gave a little bit about. You were relatively new to the desk, to the Destination.
And I, I can't remember where you said you came from.
Kylie Diaz: been in the destination since: Larry Aldrich:Okay.
Kylie Diaz:At the dmo. So, yes, I, I come from a marketing and hotels and attractions background, so I've kind of covered all of the bases.
Narrator:Okay.
Larry Aldrich:Usually. Well, I'm sorry about that. I. I knew there was something new. I just couldn't remember. And I.
We talked about a lot of different things and it was a year ago, so excus. My bad memory. It's still early.
Kylie Diaz:We meet a lot of people, so it's okay.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah. So, you know, usually we'll talk about trends or something interesting going on.
Either, you know, in your career in the industry, is there anything that sticks out you'd like to bring? Top of mind?
Kylie Diaz:Yes. Actually, we have been working at Visit St. Pete Clearwater on some meaningful travel efforts. So really excited about that.
It's something I'm very passionate about, and so that's a trend that I'm excited about right now.
Larry Aldrich:Is there anything in particular that you're at liberty to discuss?
Kylie Diaz:Sure, yeah.
So we've actually partnered with an organization called Tourism Cares, and they are out there in the industry working with DMOS to help people connect to meaningful travel experiences in their destination. And so what that means is people that are looking for something a little bit deeper if they want to connect with the people of a destination.
The culture of a destination, its history, its environment, it's about those transformative experiences that you can have in a destination that you might not get. Just, you know, with your regular hotel stay. It's like it's about digging a little deeper and.
And for an experience that you can take home and really remember.
Larry Aldrich:Okay, so just a couple things I wanted to actually ask, so. And I'm a read them, so. Excuse me. At Clearwater Marine Aquarium, you had a balanced conservation goals with tourism marketing.
What did that teach you about mission driven marketing?
Kylie Diaz:Oh, okay. Well, Clearwater Marine Aquarium is my previous role. I was the director of tourism marketing there.
And their mission is rescue, rehab and release of marine life, education and inspiration of the human spirit. And that taught me a lot about marketing that's rooted in authenticity and with purpose.
And, you know, there we weren't just promoting an attraction visitation and making sure that those visitors were having an emotional connection with us was really the engine that fueled, you know, the tourism was the engine that fueled our success and the success of the animals and the success of the conservation work. So the tourism was the engine that provided the ability to be able to do the conservation work.
Larry Aldrich:Okay. I've been coming to Florida for quite some time. I haven't quite moved here yet. And I like, love the St. Pete area.
Haven't spent much time in Clearwater. So where is the marine aquarium? I mean, I love that type of activity and I'd like to visit it. So can you give a little bit about the.
Maybe the location or tell me something a little bit about the marine aquarium? Because I'd like to visit.
Kylie Diaz:Well, it has the benefit of being located on one of America's most beautiful beaches, Clearwater Beach. So as you're driving over the bridge there into Clearwater beach, it's right there on the right.
Larry Aldrich:Okay.
Kylie Diaz:And one of the benefits of that is the incredible partnership that you can form with the hoteliers there. It really is the backbone of their attendance and so we were able to do some really exciting partnerships with the hoteliers.
And it benefited the aquarium because it was, like I said, it was the backbone of the tourism. It was driving people right into the aquarium.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah, I, I, I, I mentioned all the time. I watch a lot of National Geographic and Discovery. I love animals and fish. My brother's wedding reception was at the aquarium at the Pittsburgh Zoo.
Oh yes, I love that. That was pretty cool. So at Visit St. Pete Clearwater, you oversee the capital funding program.
Many people don't realize how tourism funding impacts local communities. Can you explain how tourism bed tax dollars support projects throughout Pinellas County?
Kylie Diaz:Yes, absolutely. So the bed tax dollars that we collect, we're very fortunate to have a destination that year over year we've been collecting over $90 million.
So those bed tax dollars that are collected, which are paid for by visitors, they're not paid by residents. These dollars are reinvested back into the community through deserving projects. And so that is one of the programs that I oversee.
And last year alone, I think we gave about $26 million to several project. These are museums, attractions, coliseums, sports arenas, beach, park facilities.
And these are, you know, experiences that not just residents and visit, but, but also visitors and residents can enjoy. So both, and it's really great to be able to be the person that gets to reinvest those dollars back into the community.
And then in addition to that, we put about a million, sorry, $100 million, that's another zero, $100 million towards beach renourishment in our county. So we, you know, we had some harsh impacts from those storms in 24.
And so we were able to literally put sand back on the beaches through that hundred million dollar investment.
Larry Aldrich:I read a little bit about that. When I go, I, I bring my family down to St. Pete beach in the summer. You know, my mom, dad, brother, son, his family, so they, they like it a lot.
Actually, my brother and his family will be back down here at the end of May. They like to go to Busch Gardens. Actually, we all like to go to Busch Gardens.
Kylie Diaz:I love roller coasters.
Larry Aldrich:It's fun. You've become very involved in meaningful travel initiatives. What does meaningful travel mean to you?
Kylie Diaz:Meaningful travel to me. When I was younger, right after 9, 11, I had the opportunity to travel over to Malaysia and spend about three weeks promoting travel and tourism.
And while I was there, it was an experience that really changed me personally in three ways. Really. It taught me, like I mentioned earlier, that power of transformative travel.
Additionally, it taught me a deep Love and respect for the environment. At the time in Borneo and their rainforest there, they were experiencing deforestation at, you know, mass levels.
And so I was able to hear and understand a little bit about that. And also it taught me, and this was kind of before I really truly understood it, but as a destination, how to respond in a crisis.
Because global travel was really down sharply and tourism Malaysia was looking for a solution. And so as a result, that's how I was able to travel over there to film this travel and adventure show. And those experiences.
Experiences just really stuck with me in a way. I mean, I can remember every single moment of my time there.
Meeting the people, the culture, hearing about the history, experiencing the environment, climbing mountains, diving, doing all kinds of these experiences.
And I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience travel like that, because it really helps you understand what a destination is and what it's about. Rather than just feeling a destination on a surface level, checking the box. Okay, I went. There it is. Wow.
I really understand this destination and what they're all about. And I think all of us at the destination marketing level really want that for our guest.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're in the business of vacationing.
Kylie Diaz:Yeah.
Larry Aldrich:I mean, that's a bit of an extended term if you use it that way, because travel can be a day or two, but we look at it as vacationing. How did your background lead you to destination career, a career in vacation?
Kylie Diaz:Well, it is. It was not a linear path. I will say that. It was not a linear path. So actually my background is in environmental education.
And so I actually did my internship with the New York Aquarium at the time, worked in hotels and restaurants in New York City. So I really got a good understanding for both the environment and hospitality in New York.
And hospitality at the time was a means to get me through college. And then it ended up being what I did as a career. And after leaving New York City, I was fortunate enough to work for Starwood Hotels.
And so I traveled from there to South Carolina. And it was in South Carolina that I found a destination that was really doing things the right way. And it left such an impression on me.
And so a lot of those things that I learned in South Carolina and Hilton Head, I have actually brought into our destination. Arriving in Clearwater, I was able to get the job at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which was six years of phenomenal, fun, meaningful work.
And now I'm able to continue that work at the destination level. And I have been collecting these experiences and using those experiences as ways to transform My destination. And so that's what I'm passionate about.
That's kind of how my background sort of influences where I am now.
Larry Aldrich:The hospitality industry is a lot more than I would say most people know.
A lot of people don't go to school to get a degree or get educated in the hospitality industry, probably because it's, it doesn't sound glamorous like, say, when you're coming out of high school or something like that, because they don't, they don't really know. I never knew how much fun, how exciting. And.
Let's just say, you know, a great career that the hospitality industry can be, you know, when a lot of people, they, they go, I guess they don't market it and advertise it good enough or well enough because everybody wants to go to school for something glamorous. Or even when people say, I'm going to go for nursing, I don't know anything else. I mean, and hospitality is there.
You go anywhere in the world and have an amazing career in hospitality. And I didn't know that until I got into destination marketing. Yeah, I just, I, I find it. Wow. It wows me still that I love what I do now.
I love this industry and the people I meet, and it's amazing. And I just kind of threw that in there when you talked about the hospitality.
And I'm thinking people don't go to school, or at least we don't hear as much about it because it's not as talked about as much as, yes, nursing's a great career, engineering is a great career, but so is hospitality. And it's just something that you don't hear much about. And that was my little.
Kylie Diaz:It's okay. I mean, you find that people are deeply, deeply passionate about it. And it really is.
I mean, there's nothing better than being able to promote beautiful places.
And we actually have a college course with St. Pete College that we've curated, and that's what we like to teach the students, is, hey, you can go into hospitality.
And it might not mean that you're just working at a restaurant or maybe the front desk of a hotel, but you could be working in marketing, you could be working in the film industry, you could be working in an aquarium. There's all these opportunities that are available to people in the name of hospitality.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah. And it's rewarding. I mean, you can change the economics, you know, the economic position of Malaysia or Panama City or St. Pete.
I mean, you can make a huge change when you look back across your career so far what common thread connects all of your experiences? I guess that was kind of a good sidebar because it brings us right into this.
Kylie Diaz:Yes, for me, I think it's got to be the power of partnerships.
I would not be able to get most of what I am able to accomplish done without my partners and without the creativity and collaboration between partners.
Because if you're working at a nonprofit or you're a DMO in a rural area, or if you're a DMO for any area, you really need your partners to get things done. Sometimes your resources are. You need to stretch them or you need to figure out you might not have a resource, but your partner might.
And some of the most incredible creative projects that I have ever done have been because there was a resource that I needed, there was a resource that they needed, and we came together and we formed a partnership. And I will be telling those stories for the rest of my life because it's so important. So I would say the power of partnerships.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah, that's. That's. That's pretty, pretty powerful.
I mean, we partner with a lot of different DMOs, CVB's, media companies, and without that, we wouldn't know the information. We know. We wouldn't know where we can help, where we can be a part of change. So that power partnership is. Is pretty important.
So from the Visit St. Pete Clearwater standpoint, do you have a metric of how you measure success?
Kylie Diaz:I would have to say that the metric that I measure success by is by the happiness of my partners and the power in our visitation. You know, when people are happy in their destination, those visitors want to come back and they want to return. And you see it in the numbers.
You see it in the tourism numbers and the state taxes that are collected and the bed taxes that are collected. People are coming back and they're excited to come back to visit St. Pete Clearwater.
So it's a great destination, and I'm really fortunate to work in it.
Larry Aldrich:St. Pete does very well. And I can really personally mostly only speak on St. Pete because I haven't spent much time in Clearwater yet.
But I hear a lot about how St. Pete has changed. I think it's beautiful. And I seen it. While it's beautiful, I didn't see the trend transition.
Kylie Diaz:Yeah. And we have numerous other community gems. I mean, Pinellas county, it takes about an hour to drive from top to bottom.
And there's, you've got Dunedin, you've got Safety harbor, you've got Tarpon Springs, you've got Golfport, you've got these great communities that also kind of make the destination whole. So you've got St. Pete, Clearwater, and then all these other great destinations in between.
And so, I mean, you could spend weeks exploring our destination.
And that's our hope is that travelers, if they can't experience the whole destination in one trip, that they'll come back and they'll experience our uni.
Larry Aldrich:I spent two years traveling through St. Pete, Pinellas county and still haven't gotten to all those.
Kylie Diaz:Well, talk to me next time you come. I'll make sure I get you.
Larry Aldrich:I definitely will. So thank you for being with us.
Kylie Diaz:Thank you.
Larry Aldrich:It's been a pleasure. And thanks for meeting with me two years ago. A year ago. No, actually, two years ago.
Kylie Diaz:Yes.
Larry Aldrich:Yeah, it's been a pleasure.
Kylie Diaz:Thank you as well. Thank you.
Narrator:You've been listening to Aqua Talks where marketing innovation takes center stage with bold ideas and actionable insights. Ready to take your strategies to the next level?
Visit aquataks.com to book your free consultation and explore resources that empower you to thrive in today's fast paced marketing world. Until next time, stay bold, stay inspired, stay imaginative.
