Visit Rapid City brings in new leader, changes to tourism campaign for upcoming season
RAPID CITY, S.D. – With the tourism season preparing to kick off, Visit Rapid City is also preparing for a new season and new changes.
Brook Kaufman is one of the city’s newest residents, and as of Tuesday morning, the newest President and CEO of the city’s official marketing organization.
“I really think that in my first year my top priority,” Kaufman stated. “Is to say ‘how do I get really hyper-focused on this organization so that we’re doing everything we can be doing to drive this place forward.'”
A Nebraska native, she comes from a background of tourism work with experience in both Denver and Casper markets.
During her time with Visit Casper, she worked on creating year-round marketing campaigns and the city’s first master plan involving community stakeholders. And after the last seven years in Wyoming, she is ready to hit the ground running in Rapid.
One of the many ideas she has includes youth sports, seeing more financially-beneficial use in them.
“Obviously especially in shoulder seasons youth sports is a big economic driver, or it can be,” she explained. “So I really want to talk about what a more formalized effort in that space or that segment of tourism would look like.”
And as she gets ready to present that and a multitude of other ideas to a committee Wednesday, her first major task with Visit Rapid City, she looks to help bring the city into a bigger spotlight.
“I was really excited to be in a destination that has truly what the American traveler is looking for right now, so it feels like a win-win to be here and I’m really excited to get started.”
