The Latest Developments and Sustainability Resources for Planners in Greater Palm Springs

On this episode of the Meetings Today podcast, digital content coordinator Logan Pratt sits down with Carolina Viazcan, vice president of sales for Visit Greater Palm Springs, and Laruen Bruggemans, director of sustainability and community engagement, to learn how the destination is both creating new developments while balancing its commitment to environmental and social sustainability.

Listen now:

Editors note: The following transcription was facilitated by AI program Otter.ai and proofed by our editors. Although it is very accurate, there inevitably will be some mistakes, so please consider that when reading. Thank you.

Transcript:

Logan Pratt

Hello and welcome to this Meetings Today Podcast. I'm Logan Pratt, digital content coordinator for Meetings Today, and today I am joined by Carolina Viazcan, vice president of sales for Visit Greater Palm Springs and Lauren Bruggemans, director of sustainability and community engagement at Visit Greater Palm Springs. Thank you both for joining me today.

Carolina Viazcan

Thank you, Logan. So nice to be with you today as well.

Lauren Bruggemans

Thank you for having us.

Logan Pratt

Yes, of course. Carolina, I want to start with you and kind of learn a little bit more about some of the changes and updates that have happened within the greater Palm Springs area. I know you guys have done a lot of work with the airport, there's a lot of new venues, so why don't we learn a little bit more about what Greater Palm Springs has to offer?

Carolina Viazcan

Absolutely. I am so excited. Palm Springs air. Palm Springs International Airport is rated in the top 10 for stress free airports. And what's so exciting is the additional renovations that are taking place and the added culinary experiences.

But first, let's talk about flights, because that is what we get asked a lot about. Last December, we launched a direct flight from the D.C. Dulles Airport on United Airlines. And that flight started December, and it goes all the way through the end of April and has been a huge success, really connecting our East Coast to Palm Springs. Delta Airline also debuted a service from New York City to Palm Springs direct, and it's been a great hit.

Additionally, Porter Airlines has a three weekly non-stop from Toronto, so connecting us from our D.C.-Canadian market as well. And Frontier Airlines was an airline that used to fly out of Palm Springs and now they are back and it is three times a week. And it is a seasonal, but it connects us into Denver and San Francisco, which are some of our top markets.

Additionally, for food and beverage, it has just been a delight to see all of the culinary that is local and added into our airport. For example, if you've been to Palm Springs, you'll recognize Las Casuelas Terraza, which is a four-generation authentic Mexican cuisine, with a really just great atmosphere, outdoor seating and some of the favorite dishes. As well, Coachella Valley Coffee it is… It serves locally roasted coffee with really rich, iconic blends of our desert. And Palm Springs Airport offers a courtyard for a quick pick-up before a flight.

And so we're super excited about The Pink Door as well, everyone knows Modernism is another big piece for our destination, and so we've got a pink door. And this, early 25 now, we've opened Vino Volo, which is a selection of handcrafted wines paired with gourmet meals and a great, elegant courtyard setting. It just creates the experience for everyone… A much more memorable and welcoming for all.

Logan Pratt

Do you guys have, like, a good local connection? I know you mentioned a couple local restaurants within the airport. Is that something that Palm Springs really prides itself in, is that local connection?

Carolina Viazcan

So our folks love all of the culinary, and Greater Palm Springs is changing that and really becoming a culinary destination. So to bring partners like the ones mentioned and like Trio, which is another great local restaurant, to be able to take that as your meal on the plane, or take some coffee to go. That was part of the feedback from surveys done by the airport.

Logan Pratt

Yeah, I know a lot of meeting planners really want to have that authentic kind of local cultural experience. And I think one of the best ways to do that is through F&B. So it sounds like there's a lot of great options.

Carolina Viazcan

Absolutely.

Logan Pratt

And I know you also have a lot of new hotels and event venues that have been recently built in greater Palm Springs. So what can meeting planners look forward to as they come into the destination? And, you know, what's new in terms of the the new builds?

Carolina Viazcan

Yes, so Thompson Palm Springs features 168 guest rooms and 18 suites. It is a wonderful addition to our downtown community. And this is a newly constructed hotel which really just brings in the mid-century modern design with an open concept layout. And of course, overlooking downtown Palm Springs and adjacent to a great lot of different restaurants.

But one of the big key pieces with this particular hotel is for those wine enthusiasts. You can now indulge into HALL Napa wine tasting and wine lounge. So it offers selected wines from Hall, Walt and Baca Wines. And they really just create a wonderful, immersive experience that brings wine country to greater Palm Springs through this.

They also have offer Lola Rose, which is managed by Chef Quentin Garcia, offering a Mediterranean inspired dish with local ingredients. And it is quite delicious. So definitely recommend to be able to enjoy Lola Rose and their outdoor seating area as well.

Another hotel that has fully transformed is the Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort Villas.
So elevated experience, they went through an impressive renovation of $64 million, which really included in a rebranding to Grand Hyatt, a much more elevated brand, reimagined their guest rooms and villas. If you had experienced that property, their villas are quite unique, but the elevation and the feel for them are just incredible even more so now.

They also have opened two wonderful culinary experiences, Carmocha and Tía Carmen. And they are… It is by the acclaimed Chef Angelo Sosa, Top Chef contestant. And Tia Carmen pays homage to the Sosa family roots with a menu celebrating local ingredients, traditional flavors. And Carmocha is about small bites and showcasing culinary flair from around the globe as well. So these two venues offer exceptional experiences with elevated culinary bites.

Logan Pratt

I also want to ask, I think you mentioned kind of the connection to wine country and stuff. Is that something that meeting planners can take advantage of when they come to Greater Palm Springs?

Do you guys offer wine tastings or anything like that? Can you explain a little bit more about that connection there?

Carolina Viazcan

Absolutely. So with the HALL Napa Valley Tasting and Wine Lounge that creates a very unique experience and it is the first in our destination to be able to offer intimate wine tastings. Or they can bring that into the meeting space to create something new, and it can be specially curated for them. So what a great opportunity to be able to have that here.

Logan Pratt

And every meeting is a little bit better with some wine.

Carolina Viazcan

Absolutely, yes.

Logan Pratt

So that's what everyone can take advantage of. But yeah, I know you mentioned culinary stuff a lot. I know there's even outside of some of the hotels, within the hotels and outside some of the hotels, there's a lot of culinary expansions that are going on in Greater Palm Springs. So can you talk a little bit more about some of those local flavors that people can take advantage of?

Carolina Viazcan

Yeah. So there's a great article that was just released from Food and Wine commenting that Greater Palm Springs is becoming a culinary destination and I have to agree with that.

One of the restaurants that just opened and we are so excited about is Kestrel Kitchen at Indian Wells Golf Resort. It was a vision by celebrity chef Richard Blais and this restaurant features menu of wood fired steaks, homemade pastas, amazing desserts, all with a beautiful view of their golf courses as well.

But the gastronomy here in greater Palm Springs is quite incredible.
We have Booze Hounds Palm Springs, which is one of our local favorites, and you can bring your puppy or your doggie to the restaurant and enjoy a wonderful meal. And there's a special menu for them, too. And I think that's what makes it so unique.

There's also Farm in downtown Palm Springs, which is set in a lush garden courtyard, and it just transports you into a little part of southern France with their wonderful culinary menu. So there is so much that is definitely evolving, which is why I can see why Food and Wine magazine mentioned Palm Springs as a culinary destination.

Logan Pratt

Yeah, it sounds like it's on the rise and people need to come out and experience, you know, all the diverse flavors that are out there in Greater Palm Springs.

Carolina Viazcan

Yes.

Logan Pratt

And I know when meeting planners think about California and stuff, they really want to know what there is to do out here. So can you talk a little bit about some of the activities and maybe some of the offsite venues that people can take advantage of when the meeting's done? You know, where can they go to have a little bit of fun in Palm Springs?

Carolina Viazcan

Yeah. So one of those options is the Palm Springs Surf Club. This opened recently and it is a water park experience, but it's a state-of-the-art surfing simulator. And it has been very well received, not only by our locals, but a lot of groups have taken advantage of this very unique experience in the destination. And it offers… you can buy it out for a full group. So right now, this weekend, it's being utilized for activations around the Coachella Music Festival. But I've had groups that have utilized it for meetings, offsite meetings or offsite teambuildings.

Additionally, a great new venue for our destination is the Plaza Theatre. So it is a gem that is located downtown Palm Springs. It originally opened in 1936 as part of the Pioneering and Plaza shopping area. But they are going through a renovation and will be open this December. It will revitalize the theater as an independent venue, continuing our legacy around the arts and culture. But this will also be able to be utilized for planners that are looking for unique spaces to create a different experience for their events, it could be a great reveal. And so this gives us the opportunity of a new venue in downtown Palm Springs as well.

Logan Pratt

Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of fun stuff to do and a lot of interesting venues that planners can take advantage of. And I know when people come to California, I'm sure they love to go surfing and stuff. So the surf club sounds like a great opportunity for them.

Carolina Viazcan

Absolutely. Very unique.

Logan Pratt

Yeah. And I also want to ask a little bit, kind of transitioning into our sustainability discussion, because I know that's one thing that Greater Palm Springs is very well known for is your sustainability efforts.

I know you have a lot of eco-friendly resorts that kind of offer, you know, planners, the opportunity to engage with that sustainability. So I think either of you can go ahead and answer some of those resorts that maybe planners can, you know, take advantage of.

Lauren Bruggemans

Yeah, there are some fantastic eco-friendly resorts here in Greater Palm Springs.
It's really critical and top-of-mind for our partners in our destination and for us, and you know just for a second, to just lay the framework of it.

You know we've come up with some great resources for meeting planners to access our sustainability ethos. And to understand why it's so important to our region. So this was a collaboration with PCMA and a sustainability consulting firm called Fruition where we created a white paper. And it's a model of sustainability called the 4 C's.

So we're looking at conservation, community, culture and commerce. And it was… this approach was really guided by an understanding that sustainability is multifaceted. And we wanted a definition of sustainability that went beyond green and eco, to really include these other parts of our community. About celebrating culture, about economic development and workforce development. All of that is part of it.

Our approach was also in response to data and research and feedback from our visitors, both group and leisure, that sustainability was a critical booking factor for them. And that we know that meeting planner planners want to book destinations that align with their values and where their attendees feel safe and they feel welcomed and included in part of our community.

So there are a lot of wonderful hotels that really put sustainability at their core. Such as the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort and Spa that focuses on food waste and doing things like they have a program to recycle materials on property like tennis balls. You know that’s something you know we don't always think about, but they're able to repurpose those products into different ways. There's wonderful properties around the valley.

But we're able to kind of aggregate that information and put it together in this great white paper and put that on our meetings website along with some other resources for planners to make their decision, knowing that sustainability's important to them.

Logan Pratt

Yeah, I think a lot of planners also value sustainability. And so that sounds like a great resource for them to be able to download and check out. I think, you know, you mentioned one of the four C’s was conservation?

Lauren Bruggemans

Yes.

Logan Pratt

So what are some of the ways that greater Palm Springs is kind of engaging in some of those conservation efforts? To kind of, you know, make sure that the environment around is pristine and nice for years to come?

Lauren Bruggemans

You know, the best way as a destination marketing organization can contribute to conservation and reservation is to uplift and amplify the good work of those organizations that are in our environment, that are preserving land, that are protecting land, that are providing visitor education.

You know, we're storytellers here. We can shine a spotlight on the good work of Friends of the Desert Mountains, an organization that has conserved 63,000 acres of land in our destination. We can put a spotlight on the work of the indigenous stewards of our land, the Cahuilla people, and the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians that have protected 31,500 acres of land. We can celebrate the rich agricultural bounty in our region, which makes us, as to Carolina's point, why we have such this beautiful culinary experiences here. Your food is taking a shorter time to get to your plate.

So, you know, when we talk about conservation and preservation and these stories, what we do is we shine a light on those stories, we donate to those organizations, we keep them as part of our family and our network. And we make sure that our visitors, group and leisure, understand what these organizations do. And that's the best way we can contribute to this part of the ecosystem.

Logan Pratt

It’s so interesting you bring up the intersection between, you know, food and beverage and sustainability. Because I think they're… They're obviously very related, but you don't hear them talked about together too much. And it is, you know, inherently important that like, you know, in order to grow good food and good quality produce that you do need to focus on sustainability and make sure that you're not putting too much pollution out there and stuff.

So is that something that you guys really like focus on is the is the intersection of those two and, like, making sure that F&B is nice for people based on sustainability?

Lauren Bruggemans

Absolutely. I think, you know, we are so fortunate to be in this region, again, where this agricultural bounty is at our doorstep. And there's a couple of layers of that, again which speaks to that 4 C's model.

When we use local farms here, when our hotels source from local farms, it's that idea, yes, that the food is traveling a shorter distance to your plate and we're also using what's in season. But the other piece of that is community. When you're buying from local farms, you're supporting your neighbor, you're supporting your friend. And that's the community piece that's really critical to us.

There are some fantastic farms in our region and we know the owners. Right?
We have events at their spaces, and this is the way that, again, sustainability is really more holistic than just one piece.

Logan Pratt

I also find it very interesting, like… There's so much growth happening in Palm Springs and stuff. There's so much economic growth, you know, the destination’s been growing a lot over the past few years, the past few decades.

How do you at Visit Greater Palm Springs think about balancing that economic growth while also keeping in mind conservation and stuff. Like, how are those balanced in your guys' philosophy?

Lauren Bruggemans

For us, it's really about seeing tourism and hospitality as a modality for economic mobility. Because, as I mentioned, we're storytellers. And we are responsible for the images and the stories that we share that get visitors to come here.

So when we really have this strong ethos of sharing the local, of sharing the community. That then shines a spotlight on them for them to be able to benefit from that visitation, to benefit from those dollars that come with having that spotlight shown on them.

Because, again, it's… and it's twofold, isn't it? It's… On one hand, it's what our visitors want. We know they want to connect to unique, local, authentic experiences in our destination. But on another side, it allows us to uplift our community through this lens.

So for us, you know, a part of that is youth engagement, for example. We believe here that our planet's greatest hope for the future is youth. So in our youth engagement projects with scholarships, and work with school districts on leadership programs, and connecting students to opportunities in our industry, that's another layer of sustainability. We're talking about sustainable pipelines of engaged and knowledgeable leaders in our industry.

We work with community organizations like one called Caravan Sarai Project, which works with underserved small businesses in our region. So we partner with them on cohorts of entrepreneurs that can then connect to our tourism and hospitality landscape.

So, again, for us… All these layers… Our community is top of mind and we're helping our visitors connect with our community at every turn to benefit our residents.

Logan Pratt

Yeah, and that's such an interesting, again, intersection between the next generation of, you know, people in Palm Springs with sustainability. Because, you’re right, it is… You do need to have that kind of sustainable aspect of that, of education, of helping them learn and grow so that they can, you know, one day, keep up the good work that you guys are already doing.

So I think my last question for either one of you is… You know, as meeting planners are looking to select their next destination for their next program… You know, I think a lot of them listening to this might be wondering, you know, “Why Greater Palm Springs?”

You know, what is it that you guys bring to the table that maybe no other destination, you know, around in California or even in the rest of the country can offer? You know, what’s kind of that special sauce that Greater Palm Springs brings?

Carolina Viazcan

Logan, I think one of the pieces that really makes our destination stand out is exactly what Lauren talked about. The 4 C's of sustainability, our commitment to our destination. This is what could really make us stand out to planners to be able to deliver a unique experience by utilizing our 4 C concept, right?

Understanding that we want to take care of our planet from a conservation standpoint, but that you could get a cultural and community engagement experience very differently. And we are the experts, I think that's when we really recommend reaching out to your DMO partners.

Because we're continuously learning and working with our local part counterparts here of different businesses. You know, last week we went and toured a women-owned date farm. And how do we support these businesses and how do we bring the economic (Right? From an economic standpoint?) how do we bring groups, unique experiences and sustain our local partners?

And I think this is all of the work that is being done behind the scenes, that we're committed to have the right balance for the community, but also create that wonderful experience for planners that they may not get anywhere else.

So I think, you know, besides being a top destination… And there's a lot of seasonality, so depending on if you're looking from a budget standpoint, we have some great off-peak dates that would work. I think this is a really big piece for planners to consider of when you're looking at other destinations, do you have all of this support and commitment to bring your group here?

Lauren Bruggemans

Yeah, just to add to what Carolina said. There is an inclusive and welcoming feeling in our oasis. Every resident is bought into this feeling of being a haven. And when we say oasis, we often talk about that it's not just geographic, it's emotional.

It's what makes your heartbeat faster can be found in Greater Palm Springs. And I know that everyone on this team and our partners want to make Greater Palm Springs this bright light of sustainability. We want to lead the way and we want to show the nation and the world that we care about the future of our planet, about the future of our youth, that we care about the humans in our community. And we want to be part of creating the tourism future our world's needs.

And I'm so always excited to do the work that we do and to be part of this team that wakes up every day thinking about this.

Logan Pratt

That’s awesome. And thank you guys so much for giving your time and telling our audience a little bit about Greater Palm Springs and what it can offer their next meeting and event. Well, Carolina and Lauren, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Lauren Bruggemans

Thank you.

Carolina Viazcan

Thanks, Logan.

Logan Pratt

That was Carolina Viazcan, vice president of sales for Visit Greater Palm Springs and Lauren Bruggemans, director of sustainability and community engagement. Once again, I'm Logan Pratt, digital content coordinator for Meetings Today, and I want to thank you all for joining Carolina, Lauren and I on this deep dive into Greater Palm Springs. To learn more about planning events in Greater Palm Springs, check out visitgreaterpalmsprings.com. And as always, thank you so much for listening.

This podcast was produced in partnership with Visit Greater Palm Springs