Sep 29, 2026 · 26 min · 13 segments
Every Tuesday, 19 News anchor Brian Duffy interviews the people shaping the present and future of Northeast Ohio. This week, we sit down with David Gilbert to discuss tourism in Cleveland.
Why is it so important that Cleveland Northeast Ohio have their share of that and not even their share of it have more of the share than other cities? Is it? Is it grow or die? Is that really what it
is? there's a couple things and we see our job and i think it's it's there's more as much of the long term as the short term for cleveland number one is it is about jobs if you take if you have billions of dollars which is what's spent every year billions of dollars that supports over 70 000 jobs in the county it means that if if the dollars that come in by visitors were gone tomorrow, every household in Cuyahoga County would have to pay about $1,300 more in taxes to make up for those dollars of the taxes they generate.
So when their minds are changed about Cleveland by seeing it, they are now more open to not only visiting again, but coming here to take a job, investing in this community.
We kind of think of it as how do we drive the car, you know, get a souped up car, drive it well, but also pave the road ahead of us.
So five years, 10 years down the road as we're doing this, we have a smoother ride.
How are we doing from that perception standpoint? You said when people come here, their perception changes, but it's important that we have the right attitude about who
At the end of the day, you know, our phones are how most people get, what we put out on our phones are how most people get their information out on where they decide to go.
Whether it's through AI, which is collecting from the collective, or whether it's people posting on Yelp or whatever it may be, It's a business problem if locals don't appreciate what they have and send it out to the world.
We started doing about a dozen years ago research and what we found was at the time 34% of locals would recommend Cleveland as a place to visit.
grown up here, it's a weird thing that we have this, we have these deep roots and feel very strongly about our community, and it can manifest in good ways or not so good ways.
And what we have to do is take that woe is us, but if you turn it the right way and get people to think about what they love and appreciate about their own community, we can actually make that connection far stronger.
Why is it so important that Cleveland Northeast Ohio have their share of that and not even their share of it have more of the share than other cities? Is it? Is it grow or die? Is that really what it
is? there's a couple things and we see our job and i think it's it's there's more as much of the long term as the short term for cleveland number one is it is about jobs if you take if you have billions of dollars which is what's spent every year billions of dollars that supports over 70 000 jobs in the county it means that if if the dollars that come in by visitors were gone tomorrow, every household in Cuyahoga County would have to pay about $1,300 more in taxes to make up for those dollars of the taxes they generate.
So when their minds are changed about Cleveland by seeing it, they are now more open to not only visiting again, but coming here to take a job, investing in this community.
We kind of think of it as how do we drive the car, you know, get a souped up car, drive it well, but also pave the road ahead of us.
So five years, 10 years down the road as we're doing this, we have a smoother ride.
How are we doing from that perception standpoint? You said when people come here, their perception changes, but it's important that we have the right attitude about who
At the end of the day, you know, our phones are how most people get, what we put out on our phones are how most people get their information out on where they decide to go.
Whether it's through AI, which is collecting from the collective, or whether it's people posting on Yelp or whatever it may be, It's a business problem if locals don't appreciate what they have and send it out to the world.
We started doing about a dozen years ago research and what we found was at the time 34% of locals would recommend Cleveland as a place to visit.
grown up here, it's a weird thing that we have this, we have these deep roots and feel very strongly about our community, and it can manifest in good ways or not so good ways.
And what we have to do is take that woe is us, but if you turn it the right way and get people to think about what they love and appreciate about their own community, we can actually make that connection far stronger.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
