May 23, 2024

For about 72 hours, it was like stepping into South Dakota from a brownstone building in New York City.

Travel South Dakota transformed the fifth floor and roof deck of a building in the city’s SoHo neighborhood into the “SoDak House,” an immersive experience designed for travel industry media to discover what awaits in South Dakota.

“It was even better than we thought,” Tourism Secretary Jim Hagen said. “The feedback was absolutely spectacular.”

More than 70 “top-tier” travel writers and media attended the April event to kick off the heart of tourism season, where they had memorable interactions with the following businesses and organizations:

• CH Patisserie, Sioux Falls
• Pheasant Restaurant and Lounge, Brookings
• Skogen Kitchen, Custer
• Fleurish Flower Farm, Elk Point
• Black Hills Contraband Distillery, Rapid City
• Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer
• South Dakota Symphony and Lakota Music Project, Sioux Falls
• Sonja Gloria Pottery, Sioux Falls
• Prairie Edge and Sioux Trading Post, Rapid City
• Chislic Festival, Freeman
• Ingalls Homestead, DeSmet
• Fernson Brewing Co., Sioux Falls
• Buffalo Chip, Sturgis

“It was a great week,” said Cole Casper, brand manager for Fernson, which set up a pop-up bar on the roof and served samples of several signature brews.

“Most people enjoyed the beer, and a few worked in food and beverage and went through each of the tasting notes. When they wanted to know how things were brewed was when the conversations got really interesting, and those people were fun to talk to.”

CH Patisserie owner Chris Hanmer did 10 live demonstrations throughout the event, preparing a small version of the Le Citron lemon tart on the menu in downtown Sioux Falls, along with bringing along his signature macarons.

“It was just so amazing how receptive and how excited all of the media and journalists we met were for Sioux Falls, to be honest,” he said. “I think the idea panned out just so wonderfully and was authentic. Having the actual people that are making the things and running the businesses being able to interact directly with the media was so cool.”

Fleurish Flower Farm from Elk Point was able to go to the flower district in New York City “and source the same flowers she grows on her farm and bring them to the activation and create beautiful bouquets,” Hagen said.

“We had two incredible representatives from the Chislic Festival frying up chislic and explaining the festival and the origins of chislic and how it’s unique to South Dakota, so that was an incredible experience.”

Native American artists provided music and the head mountain carver at Crazy Horse Monument explained the progress there. There also were other artists, chefs and entertainers.

Businesses were able to make connections with media outlets and bloggers, leading to coverage already, plus multiple social media mentions.

“The city was great, South Dakota Tourism did a great job and made it easy for us,” Casper said. “I definitely learned a lot, and it was cool to win people over in real time.”

The feedback from the travel media industry was compelling, Hagen said.

“They said they’d never been part of an activation like this and gave us huge props for thinking outside the box,” he said. “I couldn’t have been prouder of our industry. They just represented South Dakota so beautifully and really did open the eyes of all these travel writers. It was a roll of the dice, but we’re willing to take those risks, and we worked hard to make sure it would be as successful as possible.”

Travel South Dakota “would definitely” create a similar installation again, maybe every couple of years, he said.