Episode 3: Jorge Franz, Houston First

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Journeys Profile. Today I'm joined by George SVP at Houston First, and this is a very, very interesting opportunity to learn more about Houston, the offerings from Houston First. So George, it's wonderful to have you joining us here. How are you, sir?

[00:00:16] I'm doing great. Great to see you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. We're very excited to have you here, George. Now, George, look, just could you, what is it? Who are you? Give us a way. Who am I? What do I do here? Exactly.

[00:00:28] George Franz, I'm Senior Vice President of Tourism and Industry Relations here at Houston First, and this is essentially the destination marketing organization for Houston. And, you know, just promote Houston is a great place to visit. That's my job.

[00:00:41] Gotcha. So most of us will have an idea of your destination and promotion. But look, give us an overview of Houston First. What's the background? And then I want to ask about you later on. But let's go. Tell us about Houston First.

[00:00:53] Yeah. So Houston First was established in 2011. We took over from the old Convention and Visitors Bureau. Many, many of you in the industry know what a CVB is. Houston First is essentially the destination marketing organization for Houston. We're a little bit different than other

[00:01:08] than other DMOs because we also manage the convention center in Houston. We own the largest hotel in the city, the Hilton Americas Hotel. We manage about 10, 11,000 parking spots in downtown Houston. We manage theater buildings.

[00:01:23] We have our hands in a lot of pots, right? So it is a different organization. It's a different model, but we essentially promote this as a great city to visit. Now, just before we get into it, there's a lot to ask you here. What about you, George?

[00:01:39] What's your background? How did you get here? Well, you might have noticed my name is Jorge. It's in Spanish. It's, you know, I... And I'm not mispronouncing just for clarity. We have this conversation. We're all good. No, but it's...

[00:01:52] I was born in Chile. I was born in Santiago, Chile. And I left there as a very young boy and went to live in Venezuela, I lived in Caracas, Venezuela for many years. So my name is really Jorge,

[00:02:03] but once I got to the United States, I started going by George. My background, really, I grew up here in Houston. My parents, once they got here, I went to high school here, went to the University of Houston and then, you know, got into the Mass Communications

[00:02:22] Program at the University of Houston, decided I wanted to get into public relations. All that led to a wonderful opportunity where I started working at Time Warner Cable here in Houston as their Hispanic market representative. So I was on air, on television, promoting

[00:02:35] the company and sometimes defending the company. Any of you that have dealt with your cable companies probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Everybody loves their cable company. And one day, somebody saw me on TV and decided to call me and said,

[00:02:51] hey, we'd like for you to come and promote Houston in Mexico and be our spokesperson for Houston. And it was the Convention of Visitors Bureau at that time. So I came, I interviewed,

[00:03:01] I couldn't believe there was a job that existed like that. And I was so dumb, I was so young that I said, hey, do y'all pay for the travel? And they said, well, of course,

[00:03:10] we pay for the travel. And I was like, oh, well then I'm super interested, right? And so and over the years, you know, that became Director of Tourism for Houston. And then we started doing international convention sales meetings, major events.

[00:03:25] And, you know, lo and behold, here I am now. And I have, you know, responsibility for promotion as Senior Vice President of Tourism and Industry Relations. And, you know, the city's grown so much in that time that it's been, it's never been born.

[00:03:39] So that's how I got here. And I've loved every minute of it, I've been doing it for 23 years. Well, then I think we're very, very lucky to have the depth of knowledge and experience here. So I'm hoping to tap into this across the podcast, George. So

[00:03:56] but most of everyone will be familiar with the generic of Houston first, right? Because I think all in the industry. But would you give us an overview of your offering? Well, I mean, in terms of product and in terms of what the organization does,

[00:04:12] I mean, those are two different things. But our organization is here to work with you, the industry. I mean, we are here to support you as you create itineraries for Houston,

[00:04:21] to offer ideas, to put you in contact with decision makers, to do all the job that a tourism office should do. And I'm a huge believer in service and obviously in doing things right,

[00:04:37] for my friends who actually were in Houston, I hope that y'all got a little bit of taste of that. But you're going to hear me say y'all a lot because here in Texas, that's what we say.

[00:04:45] More more. Yeah, y'all y'all y'all. So but but you know, in terms of the offering for Houston, you know, I think most people are familiar with the basics, right? I mean, it's Space Center Houston. And I'm gonna I'm gonna just stop there because I think people's

[00:04:59] idea of Space Center Houston is, okay, it's NASA. And the truth is that it's really very different than that, right? I mean, Space Center Houston was created by the Walt Disney Corporation in 1991 as the official visitor center to the Johnson Space Center, right?

[00:05:18] So you know, you know, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Johnson Space Center here in Houston. These are scientific facilities, governmental facilities. In Houston, it's 42 buildings, right? And before Space Center Houston visited, literally people would just

[00:05:33] walk on to the campus, right? They would just go and find their way. And it was, you know, old school, right? And so once Space Center got put in, essentially what happens is you go in and there's

[00:05:45] an IMAX theater, you can actually go and see movies and you get a sort of an introduction as to what is, you know, the Johnson Space Center and then you can actually take tram tours into the facility, right? And that's important because, you know, there's there's several

[00:06:00] chapters that are offered and people can actually go see the mission control, the historic mission control. You don't get access to the actual mission, the current one. But then you go to see the Saturn

[00:06:13] 5 rocket, Independence Plaza, which allows you to go into the 747 and the space shuttle above it, you actually get to walk inside it and all that. So that is, you know, that's the experience that you get at Space Center Houston. It's what people recognize most about our city.

[00:06:28] Right. But it's fair to say, and I heard this feedback a lot from all of those who had been to the Houston event with the Journey to Houston event earlier, which it's not just that,

[00:06:39] right? It's a heck of a lot more. Would you say some more about the types of things you can do in Houston? You're obviously a space, space is a key draw, right? And appealing for almost, you know, everybody, right? But there's more to it than that.

[00:06:56] Oh, well, I think what would surprise a lot of people is that we are big believers in culture and all of that. We have one of the largest museum districts in the United States.

[00:07:10] The Museum District in Houston has 19 institutions. And I'm going to go through a few of them because we could sit here and talk all day about this. But for example, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,

[00:07:22] is has one of the largest collections in the United States that include works. They're permanent collection, includes works by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso. All the masters can be found here in

[00:07:36] Houston. And I think that a lot of people kind of like what in Houston? You know, the truth is that Houston really started to become a big deal in 1901 when oil was discovered in Texas.

[00:07:48] And once that happened, you know, a lot of these tycoons that became a big deal came here. And it was the wives of these tycoons that started to put dollars into creating arts, cultural

[00:08:02] offerings for Houston, right? And to this day, it's the energy companies now that are funding these things that are big sponsors and so forth. So, you know, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston now has a new building called the Kinder Building, which houses, you know,

[00:08:20] the largest Latin American collection of fine art, as well as Asian collection of fine art in the United States. And I will tell you that I would put it up against any of the big museums

[00:08:33] in the United States like MoMA, the Art Institute in Chicago. It is really truly worthwhile. Now, Museum of Natural Science, Houston. That's another one, largest paleontology collection in the United States. It is fantastic for families. They have a beautiful mineral gemstone collection

[00:08:52] that is unlike anything else you've ever seen. You know, they have a butterfly center where you can actually go in with free flying butterflies and IMAX center. They have a planetarium, a really amazing experience and something that I had also really good

[00:09:10] energy exhibit which details sort of how energy works because obviously we are in Houston the energy capital of the world and a lot more, right? And then from there you have the Children's Museum of Houston, the Holocaust Museum. We have a really unique museum called

[00:09:26] the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, which details the story of the African American soldier from the Civil War up until today. You can't find that anywhere else in the United States. And like I said, there's 19 museums, right? So that is an amazing offering and they are good.

[00:09:44] There is incredible opportunities for VIPs at all of these and I think we can get into that a little bit later here. Yes, let's definitely do that because that's a key one for a lot of our

[00:09:56] buyers watching and listening. Would you say a little more, I mean, what I was surprised by some of the comments from our colleagues were saying that the food was just out of this world, the choices, the capability, the possibilities. You say a little bit more about the culinary

[00:10:14] aspects there because I think that surprised quite a lot of the colleagues in London when they were hearing this. Yeah, I think it surprises everyone but I'm going to just say that Houston is the next culinary destination in the United States period in the story.

[00:10:27] And I'm confident in that because season 19 of Top Chef, one of the recent seasons, was filmed here in Houston and if you haven't had a chance to check it out, go check it out

[00:10:40] because it will really give you a great look at what Houston has to offer. We spent a lot of time working with the Top Chef organizers to really highlight it. I'm going to tell you

[00:10:50] Houston is now by many research studies the most diverse city in America. Houston looks right now like the United States is expected to look in the year 2050. And so we kind of consider ourselves

[00:11:07] what the future of America is going to be like and what I'll tell you is all this corporate presence, all these companies from all over the world, whether that be in the energy sector

[00:11:18] or the medical sector or the aerospace sector, which are our top three, have brought in people from all over the world. There's 140 languages spoken in Houston and guess what? All of that has impacted

[00:11:30] the culinary scene in Houston. I think many of you would be surprised. We have a Chinatown in Houston, which locally we know is Asia town because it's not just Chinese. We have Vietnamese,

[00:11:42] Thai, Indian, Pakistani. We have a little Gandhi district here. And I can tell you if you're looking for really unique flavors, this is the only place, for example, that you can get some of the most amazing Tex-Mex, right? It's not like any other flavor. You can get here

[00:12:03] Viet Cajun crawfish if you want to try that. A little Cajun mixed in with your Vietnamese, Peruvian, Japanese ceviche. All of that are sort of the adventures you can find here. And now we're starting to see an incredible inference from Nigeria, from other parts of Africa,

[00:12:23] and from the Southeast Asia. So look, I encourage you when you come to Houston, go and eat a lot because it's really, really good. Can I ask you, obviously, journeys tends to focus heavily on luxury, on the luxury traveler and the luxury experiences.

[00:12:46] Could you give a perspective on how you, what's your methodology of engaging with the buyers? So not necessarily the end users but the buyers who are watching here. If they're looking for insight perspective, how are you engaging with them? And what kind of services can you offer

[00:13:02] those travel buyers who are working on behalf of these high net worth or these VIP customers? Well, more than anything consider us your best friend in Houston. I mean, our goal is to make

[00:13:15] sure that you can create experiences that are memorable and that are really unique for your customers. And so we have a team that is available all the time here in Houston. I've got folks that work Canada. I've got somebody dedicated to the United States.

[00:13:33] I have somebody dedicated to Europe and somebody dedicated to the Asian markets. And then, you know, Mexico is our largest international market. So we actually have an office in Mexico City and we are in the final stages of putting an office in London. And so we're not kidding

[00:13:53] around, right? We're going to have reps in the market to help out. We work with United Airlines along with all of our other partners and so we know the airlines really well. It needs to be said that Houston has nonstop flights to more than 180 destinations around the planet.

[00:14:12] And so we have the access, right? We haven't said this yet but I'd like to remind everybody Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, all right? That is by a population. And

[00:14:24] so to remind everybody it's New York, LA, Chicago and then Houston. And so we want to play with the big boys. And as such I hope that I can convince all of you that Houston has many things to offer

[00:14:38] and is a great new destination in the United States for your clients. Now George, for some of those travel bars listening now, hearing this is exciting, this is good. What can they expect or can you give a flavor to some of those VIP

[00:14:54] experiences that they could be suggesting to their clients? Yeah, absolutely. And I'll tell you we tried some new ones out here when we had journeys in town. So I'll talk a little bit about that one first. The first one was actually going to

[00:15:06] Space Center Houston, right? And I'll talk about what we did and then some other things that are available. In Space Center Houston we were able to have everybody come in, they were greeted by the CEO. But we had an opportunity to do lunch with an astronaut, right?

[00:15:20] And Space Center Houston has access to tons of astronauts. That's a thing. We don't think about this but now there's tons of astronauts, right? There's tons of people talking about it. Exactly.

[00:15:31] And they love to chat, right? They love to do these things. So we brought an astronaut to chat with the group and it is always fascinating to listen to the stories of these amazing

[00:15:41] people that most of them work on the International Space Station and they have wonderful stories to tell. Some of them talk about leadership, some of them talk about their experience going to space

[00:15:51] and you know and I think it's just a unique experience you can't get anywhere else, right? I will tell you for those that have smaller groups, Space Center Houston offers what are called Level 9 tours which are about for 10 people but this is a behind the scenes look

[00:16:05] at Johnson Space Center. So when you go into Space Center Houston you know I talked a little bit about this earlier. You get to see the historic mission control, you get to see the astronaut training facilities, all this other stuff but you don't get access to everything.

[00:16:18] This Level 9 tour gives you access to everything. You can go into the swimming pools, right? Like if any of you saw Apollo 13, you know Tom Hanks and those underwater pools, you get to go see that. You get to go see sometimes if you're lucky you actually

[00:16:32] get to go into the actual mission control which is epic because you know you get in there and there they are talking to the astronauts up in the space station. I mean it's just that's like

[00:16:42] normal. So that's one and I always say that that's a great one. The other thing that we can offer here you know we are leaning in, we are the culinary capital, the new culinary capital of the United

[00:16:56] States as in and so you know there are dozens of chefs that are looking to highlight their talents and we did that what we were here. Chef Kiran from Kiran's which is an Indian

[00:17:08] restaurant here in Houston did a wonderful experience. We have a new you know in Limbar which is another one, a chef that's from Nicaragua that did a fantastic show for the folks here but there's a variety of chefs even barbecue chefs that really can deliver some amazing

[00:17:26] dining experiences for your guests that I think are pretty unique right? I mean if you're going to come to Texas yeah we should probably have some Texas style barbecue. Definitely. The steakhouses in Houston are phenomenal right and so I always tell people there's a

[00:17:41] variety of work there and then in you know other places right. One of the things that we're just to be very honest with one of the things that we have in Houston that is we have very authentic

[00:17:52] not so beautiful restaurants but really tasty restaurants and I'll tell you my favorite is one called crawfish and noodles which is the one where you can get that viet cajun crawfish at and you can get the lobster done Vietnamese style and so forth and it's located

[00:18:09] in Chinatown and it's just a memorable experience. I mean it's a type of thing where you're going to get your hands dirty, you're going to have to wear a bib, you're going to have to do all this

[00:18:17] stuff but I mean who doesn't love that right? Who doesn't love that stuff? So there really is just a variety of experiences and then in the cultural sector you know what you know the

[00:18:28] museum district the Museum of Fine Arts you know can offer some really great tours with docent's that are extremely knowledgeable about the the collection and so forth which are incredibly interesting and you can actually do dining experiences at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston

[00:18:46] in their mineral and gemstone collection that are for about 20-30 people and I'm telling you it is the reason it's so special is because it's in a very dark room and with all the

[00:18:57] mineral and gemstones you know lit up in a beautiful way and it's just memorable right? People really dig that type of thing so I could go on forever but I mean we have plenty of and then

[00:19:10] on top of that we have plenty of high-end product that's the beautiful thing about Houston we're really starting to get some great hotels that you know the group stated the Post Oak which is a world-class five star hotel that the Thompson just opened here in Houston we

[00:19:24] have a four seasons St. Regis hotel and a variety of others that that can deliver on that kind of product. Now then let me I'm going to try and put you on the spot George so for listeners here

[00:19:35] I'm gonna ask George. Now you may have already given us one there but on the crawfish but I wonder could you give us some insider tips so you know what maybe most people wouldn't know

[00:19:50] so I think you know we probably associate some degree of off-space and energy and have you got some insider tips that maybe that might have people go oh oh interesting or yeah

[00:20:01] or have we had a key one there from you George? You've had some I will tell you you know for me I think that in general you know there's some off there's some new attractions in

[00:20:15] Houston that I love right for example there's one that's called the Cistern here near downtown Houston and the Cistern is a it's literally a Cistern is where the water was stored in Houston for many

[00:20:29] years well they transform this underground space into a multi like functional art space right and they do a lot of multimedia presentations and that type of thing underground and it is absolutely

[00:20:44] epic and very it's very affordable but I promise you you won't forget it it's like nothing you've ever seen before it's located right outside of downtown the other thing is I can tell you that

[00:20:57] you know I love seeing Houston from high above I love to go to places that are high up we don't necessarily have an observatory in Houston yet which is which is something I hope to get someday

[00:21:10] here but there is a lot of really cool little spots to go see like the top of the Hilton America's hotel in Houston has the coolest view of downtown Houston you know I love a good a good burger right

[00:21:25] and right and we we love burgers here in Houston I think we love burgers all over the world but you know another thing is there's no question that that that Houston is a shopping destination

[00:21:36] we have a lot of high-end shopping and I think a lot of folks would be surprised by the fact that you know we have our own sort of Beverly Hills area here it's called the River Oak shopping district

[00:21:46] and it is that level it is Beverly Hills level shopping located very close to the Galleria which by the way is also a high-end shopping center and many of these organizations are the stores there not only have multi-lingual staff and so forth but they have private

[00:22:01] shoppers and that type of thing we're real good at that and in Houston really excels at shopping another insider tip not commonly known but you all know that that Houston has the largest medical

[00:22:12] center in the world and I will I will tell you it's 54 institutions it's a 10 million patients a year but five of the institutions actually have international departments that work with the industry to to actually help bring in patients and and the thing is this is interesting because we

[00:22:32] do get a lot of high-end travel in Houston that comes to us from Latin America the Middle East and even Asia that is very focused on you know these are these are it's I don't like to say that we're

[00:22:43] a medical destination medical tourism destination because you're coming to Houston you probably have a fairly serious issue it might be cancer it might be you know heart issues and so forth but these departments work with the doctors in your country and actually can help you know they go

[00:23:01] through the whole experience including working with insurance companies low right right nothing and there's five institutions that excel at this so you have the md Anderson cancer center you have and you have st st luke's memorial herman uh houston methodist and and and others right

[00:23:20] so it is it is a something that you can only find here in Houston and they do two of them offer really good executive medical checkups which are two-day experiences that you know basically where you can get a full-on medical health check and I think that's something that's

[00:23:35] that's a little overlooked uh George can you give us an example of a memorable experience or an activity that you've you've heard uh or seen recently I mean obviously we've mentioned the journeys here the journey's team uh the journey's participants are still talking

[00:23:50] still talking about houston I love that I love that I tell you what I'm very jealous of the ball game and the fact they got an announcement that's really impressive really impressive but

[00:24:03] what what could you give me some some a recent example of something you've seen a small group do or VIP group do something recent you know when people think of Texas they think of cowboys

[00:24:14] right and uh it's kind of inevitable I think a lot of people especially from a certain age group you know grew up watching you know uh old john wane movies and you know it's funny because

[00:24:25] one of the first comments that people tell me when they get to houston is they say it's so green right and I'm like yeah what were you expecting and they say well like desert

[00:24:34] and I and you know it makes me laugh every time because you know you think about those old john wane movies and there they are horses and cattle out in the desert and the truth

[00:24:41] they all die in the desert they can't survive in the desert right they have to have green pastures and everything and that's funny enough how houston got started right houston is the green

[00:24:51] part of the state of texas and we have lots of trees and lots of grass and lots of that and uh you know when um you know as a part of that um there is a place here near houston

[00:25:02] that's called the the george ranch historical park which um details uh ranching history in houston from the 1830s to the 1950s and they have the coolest deal because you can actually visit period

[00:25:15] homes and so forth it's it's about 30 miles outside the city but we did a dinner where we had a gentleman who uh who goes by the name cookie right now any of you who remember the old cowboy movies yet

[00:25:29] there is this there was the guy who did the food right there was the that you had the cowboys who were in charge of taking the cattle getting getting the herd to move north so that you know

[00:25:40] these ranchers could sell the the cattle to the rich cattle barons and then to to wealthy new yorkers back in the 1830s 1840s right and um but this gentleman plays that part and he creates a meal

[00:25:54] like what the catboys ate and and you do it outdoors at night um and it is epic epic and uh you know there's several ranches around houston that you can do that you can actually contract

[00:26:07] this gentleman just to do something anywhere but i loved it because it was such an authentic experience you get to understand the role of cookie you also learned the the the the significance

[00:26:18] of of the cowboy right what was their role why did they come to be somebody had to move this product right right and uh and i think that's super cool but but um you know on top of that

[00:26:30] there is this whole idea of of you know the learning it as a business and then and then learning about the history because one of the things about the ranch that i love is that they also

[00:26:40] highlight the story of the african-american and cowboy uh and uh and also the story of the mexican the charo right and so um i'm gonna add one more thing because i i i we also created new

[00:26:52] experiences recently called houston signature experiences which we are offering now we just launched these in february of this year and these uh experiences are meant to highlight the story of of the of the african-american story here in houston many of you may know that the the

[00:27:09] juneteenth recently became a national holiday here in in the united states in 2019 if i'm not mistaken and juneteenth was for us i grew up with it like i i've known what juneteenth is

[00:27:21] since i was a kid but juneteenth was when uh on june 19th uh 1866 the the uh you know the individuals from the government of abraham lincoln arrived and basically informed folks in galveston which is a seaside community not too far from here um that they were free

[00:27:40] then and you know a lot of those individuals moved to houston and created what was known at the time as freedman's town and freedman's town is right outside of downtown houston and uh it's the first fully african-american community here in texas that uh you know for obvious

[00:27:58] reasons had to create their own entire city right and these these signature experiences get to help you understand uh you know where where they came from right there's a one that takes place at

[00:28:11] the heredity society which is right here in downtown houston and you can actually get the story of jack yates who was the leader of this community uh he was also the the the preacher at the at that

[00:28:21] anti-arq missionary baptist church which you can actually still visit to this day and you can actually get a full story from the uh from the preacher currently uh about his relevance in houston and then uh you get to visit some african-american owned businesses including

[00:28:37] this is it soul food which is uh which is the premier soul food restaurant in houston great spot you get to learn all about it and then you also get to visit um you know with with one

[00:28:49] of the premier chef's uh you know bakers here in houston that that really tells some wonderful stories about um that and then lastly a a really cool winery that's owned by an african-american

[00:29:04] woman here in houston that does uh soul food mixed with with wine right so it's it's pairings that are pairings for the soul so listen i love to travel i took this job you know thinking that i might be

[00:29:18] able to see a couple countries i i uh during the pandemic when i was bored one day i counted and i've been and i started here 23 years ago i've been in 68 countries since i started and so

[00:29:29] uh call me a travel fanatic that's what i am i'm a travel fanatic then what then so quick fire george quick fire what's your personal undiscovered gem what would you what would you personally

[00:29:42] not necessarily about houston but just you know some somewhere on the planet an undiscovered gem any friend no pressure um listen i love kiyoto japan kiyoto uh it's a and that's not an

[00:29:56] undiscovered gem but i love it i just wanted to say that but i will tell you undiscovered gem for me Taipei taiwan love it if you want great food that you can every type of food in china in taiwan great

[00:30:09] great next one what's your favorite hotel again not we can't have houston ones okay favorite hotel but somewhere else ah i'm gonna say four seasons in doha oh nice nice very nice okay i've been

[00:30:24] there uh tell us about now what's your other favorite city so you're non houston what's your favorite city on the planet um barcelona why i just love the culture i love the art i love the

[00:30:39] openness i love the people i love the food i love all of it it's feign man i what can you say spain's amazing uh finally what's your perfect vacation look like it is uh adventuring it's

[00:30:52] you know i'll tell you right now i'm about to take one here in the in two weeks i'm going to singapore in taiwan with my my wife and son my my son's 10 years old uh and we are gonna go to

[00:31:03] singapore uh and uh we're gonna we're gonna go try food we're gonna just you know see if we can sneak off to qualilump for a day and uh and then from there we're gonna go play we're

[00:31:12] gonna taiwan and my son is funny because he's a little bit of a picky eater but for some reason he just loves taiwanese food like he he loves you know noodles and all the the other day he

[00:31:22] you know tripe and i was like well if he can eat that he can eat anything excellent so we're gonna we're gonna wander through through there and and just spending

[00:31:30] time with the two of them uh in in some exotic destination to me is pretty fun nice one nice one then can i close that that sounds awesome have a great time but can i close by saying

[00:31:42] what's your message then for the travel bar is listed it gives a final message there uh yeah i mean listen you know i know that you've got a million places to choose from i i'm

[00:31:52] just going to say this about houston i i feel that we are the the new destination if people are looking for new places to go to in the united states i think we're it and i'd like to invite

[00:32:02] you and and like to ask you to bring your your your customers here i we're ready to take care of them uh more so than that i i just want to stress how important i believe that the travel

[00:32:12] industry is you know and all of us have been hammered over the past five years um you know i had to lay off my entire team during the pandemic and it you know i've started all over here

[00:32:23] but i can tell you that we you know i've fought to keep the relationship with the travel industry i i believe firmly that that we need strong travel planners travel agents all of it

[00:32:38] in order to to continue to have great experiences and so uh you can count on us we are committed here in houston and i i hope that i can work with lots of you in the future and with my team of course

[00:32:50] what's the best way of reaching out to you and your team well you can start with me uh at uh at jfrans at visit houston.com uh shandra michel uh handles all the international markets for us right

[00:33:04] so she is a shandra michel so it's s michel m i t c h e l l at visit houston.com and then we'll we'll take you from there but um that's the easiest way to get in touch with us george thank you so

[00:33:18] much for taking oh thank you it's been a pleasure