Travel Tacoma + Pierce County 2016 Annual Report

TRAVEL TACOMA PIERCE COUNTY 2016 ANNUAL REPORT

MISSION STATEMENT: TO DELIVER TOURISM TO PIERCE COUNTY Travel Tacoma + Pierce County increases visitor expenditures and overnight stays through strategic sales and marketing initiatives in partnership with our local businesses, partners and funding communities. We promote and package our destination to attract and meet the needs of meetings + conventions, group tours, special interest groups and leisure travelers.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

CONTENTS A Message from President + CEO - Bennish Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2016 – A Year in Review.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Telling the Story: The Impact of the Visitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

By The Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Board of Directors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

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2016 ANNUAL REPORT

Role of a DMO + Team Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

I WANT TO THANK THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY, AND INVITE YOU ALL TO JOIN ME IN ENJOYING THESE

TAILWINDS TO TOURISM

IN 2017

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

Dear Tourism Partners, We entered 2016 with a little trepidation, but left it elated.

Going into 2016, we knew that 2015 would be a hard act to follow. From the beginning, 2016 was destined to be compared against a year where we’d hosted a global-level event in the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay; a year when one event provided $134 million in economic impact to Pierce County. As an industry, we had to choose whether to see that as the perfect excuse to rest on our laurels, or the perfect opportunity to go beyond ourselves.

We chose opportunity.

By any metric, we proved in 2016 that Pierce County tourism is bigger than any one event, even one as massive as the U.S. Open. You, the tourism community, stepped up and used that momentum.

And 2016 didn’t shy away from providing plenty to talk about on its own. The National Park Service celebrated its Centennial, putting Mount Rainier in the spotlight. The Washington State Fair in Puyallup extended its run to nearly a full month. The Tacoma Dome received funding for a major modernization. Tacoma Art Museum got word they’ll be the recipients of the Benaroya Collection, which will make them one of the most important museums for glass art in the country.

As you’ll see in the pages to follow, by any metric, 2016 was a year of growth for tourism in Pierce County. Visitors came in numbers the County has never seen.

They spent more money. They created more jobs. They paid more taxes. The hotel industry prospered. The improvement over 2015 was modest, but the fact that it was an improvement over such a historic year is what’s impressive.

Because of your hard work, what could have been a spike in the data became a jump, and for that I want to thank the entire community, and invite you all to join me in enjoying these tailwinds to tourism in 2017.

Bennish Brown President + CEO Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

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ROLE OF THE DESTINATION MARKETING ORGANIZATION Destination marketing organizations [DMO] serve as the focal point of the tourism communities they represent with the goal of enhancing the long-term competitiveness of their cities. Travel Tacoma + Pierce County, a private, non-profit destination marketing organization, has served as Pierce County’s official DMO for more than 30 years. The goals of these marketing efforts are to improve the visitor experience and enhance economic prosperity by bringing meetings and visitors to the region.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

TEAM VALUES VISITOR FIRST We will always consider the primary reason we exist – to be a resource and voice for the visitor.

COLLABORATION We actively collaborate with our strongest resources – each other, our community and our destination.

CREATIVITY We strive to be creative dreamers who are not satisfied with following the crowd, and will have fun as we work outside the box.

INNOVATION We don’t accept the status quo but look to what will come, or what can come next.

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2016 ANNUAL REPORT

ACCOUNTABILITY We hold ourselves accountable to each other and our community.

TRAVEL TACOMA + PIERCE COUNTY 7

2016 YEAR IN REVIEW Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

2016 ANNUAL REPORT 8

IMEX TRADESHOW

Travel Tacoma + Pierce County brought the Northwest’s fresh air to Las Vegas for IMEX, the largest meetings industry trade show in the United States. More than 200 meeting planners came by Travel Tacoma’s booth to hear about our destination, and to enjoy the hosted oxygen bar. The team even came home with a few RFPs.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

VISITOR NUMBERS/MEETINGS + CONVENTION NUMBERS

D.C. CLIENT EVENT

$29,000,000 estimated economic impact 266 definite meetings and events 18,000 estimated room nights (11% of attendees) 163,000 attendees

(equal to the population of University Place, Gig Harbor, DuPont, Lakewood, Sumner, Puyallup and Fife)

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

For our third annual Washington D.C. client event, Travel Tacoma entertained, educated and connected with 20 professional meeting planners representing hundreds of events annually.

FUTURE BUSINESS COMING TO PIERCE COUNTY (BOOKED IN 2016) 576 room-night and non-room-night leads sent 250 room-night and non-room-night bookings converted

CANADA

MAINE

NORTH DAKOTA

WY OM

ING

ADA NEV

KOTA

NEB RAS KA DO ORA

IF CAL

PENNSYLVANIA

ILLINOIS S OU RI

ARKANSAS MIS IPPI SISS

NA ISIA LOU

TEXAS

TENNESSE ALA BAM A

NEW HAMPSHIRE MASSACHUSETTS RHODE ISLAND CONNECTICUT

NEW JERSEY

DELAWARE

INDIANA OHIO KENTUCKY

OKLAHOMA

NEW MEXICO

NEW YORK

MICHIGA N

IOWA MIS

KANSAS

IA ORN

ARIZONA

MINNESOTA

COL

UTAH

WISCONSI N

H DA

W VIR EST GIN IA

IDAHO

SOUT

T

OREGON

VERMON

MONT ANA

E

MARYLAND

VIRGINIA NORTH CAROLINA

SALES ACTIVITY

SOUTH CAROLINA

GEORGIA

SALES ACTIVITY LOCATIONS TRAVELED IN 2016 LOCATIONS TRAVELED IN 2013-2015

The sales team represented Tacoma and Pierce County at more than a dozen events all around the country, in an ambitious cycle of booking flights and then booking business.

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INTERNATIONAL VIDEOS

In partnership with Brand USA, Travel Tacoma + Pierce County and Visit Rainier developed four videos targeting international travelers from China, South Korea, Germany and the UK. We marketed these in-language videos to native speakers here, and in the countries they targeted.

GIG HARBOR GONDOLA

The Pacific Northwest’s only Venetian gondola had its first full season of operation in 2016 and was booked throughout the summer, enchanting and entertaining visitors and locals. Business was so good that owner/operator John Synco already has an eye toward expansion.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

BENAROYA COLLECTION

Tacoma Art Museum announced they’d be the recipient of the Benaroya Collection, a gift that includes 225 pieces of art, as well as the funds to build a new wing to house the collection and hire a curator for the collection.

2016 ANNUAL REPORT 12

NATIONAL PARKS CENTENNIAL

The National Park Service Centennial threw Mount Rainier into the spotlight.

To promote the park during this landmark year, Travel Tacoma + Pierce County partnered with Visit Rainier on a series of videos, print advertisements, media tours and media hosting activities.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

PORTLAND CAMPAIGN

Following on the success of last year’s event, Travel Tacoma + Pierce County took over Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square Park and wrapped some of Portland’s downtown buses and streetcars.

People who came to the booth enjoyed Pierce County-themed games, giveaways and even a glass-art scavenger hunt. In total the team met with more than 450 potential visitors. This was supported by a month long marketing campaign geared towards promoting overnight visits in the fall and winter.

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NW TREK RECORD

For the second year running, Northwest Trek Wildlife Park broke its annual attendance record, this time shattering it by 36,197 visitors to surpass the quarter-million mark.

The opening of the half-acre Kids’ Trek play area helped boost the wildlife park’s annual attendance to a total of more than a quarter million.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

The Home Course, DuPont WA

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

FOUR-BALL

Keeping Pierce County on the country’s championship golf radar, Chambers Bay in University Place and the Home Course in DuPont were announced as the hosts of the USGA’s Four-Ball Championship in 2019. The four-ball format – also called team best-ball – introduces an element of team golfing that adds a new dimension to the play.

Chambers Bay, University Place WA

USGA Four Ball Championship will be hosted by the Home Course in DuPont.

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INSTAFAM

Travel Tacoma + Pierce County brought five influential Instagrammers (1 million + total followers) from Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area for a four-day tour of Tacoma, Gig Harbor and Mount Rainier. They wrote a total of 32 articles, posted 79 times, racked up 64,207 engagements and more than 600,000 impressions.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

2016 ANNUAL REPORT 18

ASK253 TEAM LAUNCH

Travel Tacoma + Pierce County’s Visitor Experience team tried something new in 2016, they made Visitor Information Center mobile. While the Information Center serves 3,000+ visitors a year, they wanted to reach even more out-of-towners. They took to the streets and helped visitors who were out-and-about by answering questions like what to see next and where to grab lunch. In doing so, they served 800+ additional visitors.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

BIG PR HITS

The news stories kept coming in 2016, in both quantity and quality. While hundreds of stories in blogs, magazines and newspapers rolled in, the full spread in USA Today and their travel magazine GoEscape, Redbook’s Tacoma feature, and international coverage in the UK with the Irish Examiner and Scottish Woman magazine, were particularly noteworthy.

Tale of Two Cities

STRIKING SCENERY, ART THAT RAISES THE BAR, AND LOCAL PRODUCERS WHO ARE AHEAD OF THE GAME. WASHINGTON’S PUGET SOUND REGION IS A VISUAL AND SENSORY TREAT, WITH TWO EXCELLENT CITY MUST-SEES JUST A HOP AND A SKIP FROM SEATTLE

BY CHERYL CAIRA

USA TODAY

IRISH EXAMINER

Pretty, gritty Tacoma

I

keep being told I’m lucky. As I arrive into the second largest city on the Puget Sound, the sun shimmers softly over Downtown’s Pacific Avenue, a busy thoroughfare of zooming streetcars and trendy-looking shops and eateries. The rain has been teeming down for the past week, but the Pacific Northwest’s famous showers seem to have simmered down for today. In the distance, I catch my first glimpse of snow-topped Mount Rainier, the highest mountain in the Cascades and a stunning emblem for the state.

Downtown Tacoma has a bit of quirk to it. The city feels a bit like Seattle’s rebellious younger sibling – the two locations share a historic rivalry. Tacoma might not have the seductive fame of its portside counterpart, but where there are students and liberal arts (the University of Washington Tacoma was established here in 1990) follows new talent and a burgeoning arts scene.

The city used to have a reputation for high crime rates, but things have changed dramatically since the downtown area was regenerated in the nineties, and it now boasts some of the top cultural institutions in the state.

Tacoma’s industrial grit has made way for creative character, and artists who can no longer afford to live in Seattle are now making the move to the ‘City of Destiny,’ as it was monikered in the late 19th century, to collaborate and set up shop.

SEATTLEITE

View of Mount Rainier at sunset

LEFT: Chihuly artwork at Union Station

A Harmon Brewery beer flight

LEFT: Cold brew coffee

Walk with me

If Tacoma’s downtown is your landing point, then you have a wealth of city highlights within easy walking distance. Exploration requires fuel, so I interpret this in my own way and start off with a beer flight, consisting of five different local samplers at Pacific Avenue’s Harmon Brewery and Eatery (harmonbrewingco.com). My lunch choice of chilli, made with the brewery’s own Puget Sound Porter is also pretty tasty.

The craft beer scene in Washington is well-established, and the state has arguably the most inventive microbreweries in the country – particularly if you’re an IPA fan, as the climate is ideal for growing hops. Harmon has their own 10-barrel microbrewery, so you’d be pushed not to find one of their in-house or rotating local brews to your liking.

Wandering up Pacific Avenue, there are a range of speciality shops, fashion and otherwise. I feel particularly drawn to Tinkertopia’s catchy signage (tinkertopia.com). The shop offers up reusable materials for keen tinkerers – so think zips, spoons, mirrors, buttons,

Crafting on Pacific Avenue

beanbags… basically every object imaginable. You can fill up a bag of unusual items to tinker with later, or drop into the ‘TinkerSpace’ to start forming your creation. It’s a veritable treasure trove for the environmentallyconscious crafter.

Once you get closer to the port, you’ll be treated to some of the eyeboggling exhibits and installations that have sealed Tacoma’s status as the centre of the modern glass art movement.

Tacoma-born and now world-famous > SCOTTISH WOMAN MAGAZINE

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SUMMERFEST

Each summer the City of Lakewood hosts SummerFEST at Fort Steilacoom Park. In 2016, the 20th Anniversary of the city’s incorporation, the all-day festival drew 5,000 people. Along with live entertainment and activities for all ages, last year’s festival offered new activities including an International Festival and a Passport to Sports and Art, both of which will return in 2017.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

Last year marked a significant change at the Washington State Fair, going from a 17- day event to a 21 - day event, and opening its doors before Labor Day. In doing so, the Fair became an end-of-summer tradition for families, as they flocked to the Fair and the grandstand in droves all three nights of the holiday weekend. As the Fair continues its extended operating season in 2017, the tradition will continue.

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

WASHINGTON STATE FAIR

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TRAVEL TACOMA + PIERCE COUNTY 23

TELLING THE STORY: THE IMPACT OF THE VISITORS WE BRING HERE Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

2016 ANNUAL REPORT 24

Hotel operator

MARK HORACE

Hampton Inn and Suites, DuPont My family and friends live here, and the cost of living is still affordable. And similar to Lake Tahoe, South Puget Sound has water sports, snow sports, casinos and world–class parks and museums.

Visitors to our county are mostly repeat visitors that contribute to economic growth through sales receipts in local shops, restaurants and hotels. Our communities and offerings are the difference that keep them coming back.

Travel Tacoma plays a vital role as a marketing engine for our county and communities, informing visitors of what is available for them to experience that is unique to our corner of the world. The more support Travel Tacoma has, the more visitors they can bring to our area, which contribute to economic vitality and growth.

Small-business owner + Restaurant owner

CAROLE ANN MCQUADE The Swiss Restaurant and Pub

At The Swiss, we wear our love of Tacoma on our walls, by showing only local art. Right now in fact, we’re proud to have pieces from Dale Chihuly showing alongside work by School of the Arts (SOTA) students, if that’s any indication.

It wasn’t always this easy to love downtown Tacoma. The Swiss has been here for almost 25 years. It was here before the University of Washington – Tacoma; before the convention center and most of the hotels; before the museums; before the Link Light Rail. We watched this area revitalize and become friendlier to tourists and meetings. Our business has definitely prospered because of it.

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County’s work to bring in those groups and those tourists keeps the hotels filled with people who need a place to eat, drink and listen to good music. We’re proud to be here for those people!

Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

Marketing & Communications Manager

WHITNEY DALBALCON Northwest Trek

At Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, our mission is to inspire people to care about and protect wildlife that is native to the Pacific Northwest. So we’re clearly invested in this region as an extraordinary place to live and visit.

In 2016, we smashed our annual attendance record again and saw the value of tourism to Pierce County in a very direct way. With Northwest Trek located on the way to Mount Rainier, we experienced some of the momentum of the National Park Service Centennial. Nearly a quarter of our summer visitors in 2016 lived outside the state – up from about 15 percent in 2015. We attribute a lot of that increase to the Centennial and the marketing and public relations campaigns executed by Travel Tacoma + Pierce County, in partnership with Visit Rainier.

2016 ANNUAL REPORT Director of Community and Economic Development

RICARDO NOGUERA City of Tacoma

Tourism goes hand in hand with economic development. When we attract more visitors, they stay in the hotels, they eat in the restaurants, they visit the museums and attractions, they boost revenue to the city.

I’ve been with the city for four and a half years, and I’ve worked with Travel Tacoma + Pierce County nearly the entire time. They’ve been champions for drawing tourism and investment to Tacoma and Pierce County.

I’ve watched as Travel Tacoma built those relationships that move tourism forward.

They opened the doors at SeaTac Airport, particularly with respect to the U.S. Open, and now people who arrive here know that there’s not one, but two big cities they can visit. More and more people are hearing the buzz about Tacoma.

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TRAVEL TACOMA + PIERCE COUNTY

BY THE NUMBERS

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

2016 ANNUAL REPORT 28

AVERAGE DAILY RATE ($) JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

2014

80.98

89.91

85.88

84.88

89.39

92.43

97.25

98.49

93.67

89.62

81.72

78.36

2015

79.68

91.38

87.04

89.12

91.07

121.2

101.7

102.0

95.75

91.47

84.89

82.68

2016

85.08

97.81

91.59

94.38

94.84

101.4

104.0

106.9

100.2

96.19

90.94

84.72

REVENUE PER AVAILABLE ROOM ($) JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

2014

39.88

54.85

49.54

50.69

54.92

65.91

77.93

81

66.14

53.3

43.54

39.32

2015

41.86

58.73

55.67

59.43

64.86

97.91

86.06

81.34

70.50

60.59

50.6

42.80

2016

47.52

66.66

58.85

64.25

62.40

83.51

85.17

89.52

74.81

62.21

53.20

44.14

TOTAL DIRECT TRAVEL SPENDING ($)

source: smith travel report

*million

1100

TOTAL DIRECT SPENDING

1000

OTHER TRAVEL

900

DESTINATION SPENDING

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100

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2000

2005

2010

2012 Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

2014

2015

2016

** Washington State County Travel Impacts and Visitor Volume

TAX REVENUE GENERATED BY TRAVEL SPENDING ($) 120

*million

123.5

110

114.8

100

STATE TAX RECEIPTS

103.2

90

87.1

80 70

91.0

LOCAL TAX RECEIPTS

74.5

60

TOTAL LOCAL & STATE

64.9

50 40 30

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

20 10 0 2000

2005

2010

2012

2014

2015 2015

2016 2016

JOBS GENERATED BY TRAVEL SPENDING 10000 9000 8000

11,470 10,320 GROUND TRANSPORTATION

7000 6000

ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT + RECREATION

5000

ACCOMMODATIONS + FOOD SERVICE

4000 3000

TOTAL DIRECT EMPLOYMENT

2000 1000 0 2010

2016

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ORIGINS OF VISITORS SERVED 35.9% 6.3%

11.0%

4.1%

4.0%

VISITORS SERVED IN THE UNITED STATES

6,000

* 30.7% - OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE US

sources: google analytics + internal tracking

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Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

WEBSITE TRAFFIC

254,000 TOTAL SESSIONS

71.3%

WASHINGTON

6.4% OREGON

6.0%

CALIFORNIA

2.1% TEXAS

** 12.6% - OTHER LOCATIONS

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

PERCENTAGES OF WEBSITE DATA BY STATE **

1.6%

COLORADO

NEARLY

500

INTERNATIONAL VISITORS SERVED walk-in visitors served through the VIC

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$

1,131,000,000

TOTAL DIRECT TRAVEL SPENDING

11,470 JOBS

INDUSTRY EMPLOYMENT GENERATED BY TRAVEL SPENDING

6,284,000 VISITORS IN 2016

$ $ $

47.2 76.3 123.5 LOCAL TAX RECEIPTS in millions

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STATE TAX RECEIPTS in millions Travel Tacoma + Pierce County

** Washington State County Travel Impacts and Visitor Volume 2000-2016

TOTAL LOCAL + STATE in millions

FUTURE BOOKED

ESTIMATED ECONOMIC IMPACT

»EVENTS» WITH NO ROOM NIGHTS

25 OUT OF 15

$26.1 million

»

BY THE NUMBERS 2016 AT A GLANCE

»

BOOKED

ROOM

NIGHTS 2016

25,297

SOCIAL

» MEDIA » FOLLOWERS

TOTAL CIRCULATION OF ALL 336 DESTINATION ARTICLES FOR 2016: 273 MILLION

37 A few examples of some of the publications: Go Escape - USA Today Redbook Irish Examiner Northwest Travel & Life

INFLUENCED

ARTICLES

2016: 207

NEW » WEBSITE » VISITORS

2016 200,175

2016 17,817

2016 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair Jeremy Foust - Mt. Rainier/Whittaker Mountaineering Chair Elect Laurie Beck - Shilo Inn & Suites Secretary Becky Newton - City of Lakewood Treasurer Evan Marques - Eisenhower + Carlson PLLC Al Abbott - Carrot Stick Marketing Brenda Fritsvold - City of Puyallup Carmen Palmer - City of Sumner Carole Ann McQuade - The Swiss Dean Burke - South Sound Sports Commission Denise Dyer - Pierce County Karen Scott - City of Gig Harbor Kim Bedier - City of Tacoma Laurel McQuade - City of Fife Matt Allen - Chambers Bay (Kemper Sports) Pat Nagle - Harmon Pub & Brewery Roshaun Yates - Lifestyles Valet, Shuttle & Craft Tours Shon Sylvia - Metro Parks of Tacoma

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

Kathy Franklin - The Maritime Inn

Steve James - Daffodil Parade Tom Pavlik - Hotel Murano

Thank you to our annual meeting partners:

Thank you to our funding partners:

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