View From Afar S1, E18: IPW 2025 | Brad Dean, President and CEO of Explore St. Louis

Billie: I’m Billie Cohen, Afar’s editorial director, and welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of travel. And in this special series, I’m coming to you live from the floor of IPW, the annual travel conference organized by the U.S. Travel Association to share the best of America with the rest of the world.

In this episode, I’m sitting down with Brad Dean, the president and CEO of Explore St. Louis. Brad officially started his role in February 2025, bringing more than two decades of destination marketing experience to America’s heartland. His resume reads like a masterclass in tourism recovery. He helped rebuild Puerto Rico’s visitor economy after Hurricane Maria and spent 20 years transforming Myrtle Beach into one of the nation’s top coastal destinations.

Now he’s bringing that commitment and energy to the St. Louis DMO, a job he hand-picked because of the city’s incredible momentum, which we’ll hear more about in a bit.

Billie: Welcome, Brad. It’s really great to have you here. I went to a press conference [for St. Louis] like two years ago and I have not stopped talking about it to the staff. I’m like, well, why are—let’s go to St. Louis. Let’s do something on St. Louis. Send me to St. Louis.

Brad: Oh, awesome. How cool is that?

Billie: I know. Well, you know how cool it is!

Brad: Yeah, it was, uh, interesting. It’s the first place I ever vacationed as a child.

Billie: No way.

Brad: It’s really weird ’cause I can’t get that seven-year-old kid outta me. It lives through that, the eyes of that seven year old.

Billie: Where’d you grow up?

Brad: Central Illinois, nowhere near anything.

Billie: Like suburban …

Brad: Like middle of cornfields. So the only arch I’d ever seen was above McDonald’s. And I literally remember going to St. Louis. I’m like, “Wow, look at this.” I mean, it was, it was actually what I think planted the travel seed within me because [it was the] first time as a young child, I realized there was something more than cornfields.

Billie: What left the biggest impression from that trip? Was it the arch?

Brad: Well, the arch was definitely memorable, but, um, Forest Park. I mean, it’s one of the largest urban parks in North America, and as a seven-year-old kid, it looked like the end of the world there. First time I’d ever eaten at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. Uh, it was just everything.

Billie: The things that blow your mind as a child.

Brad: It still lives within me, so I can’t help—I, I could just, that kid will not stop talking to me. And so it’s kind of neat to relive all that.

Billie: That’s so awesome. Was there toasted ravioli on this all-you-can-eat buffet because we’re, I, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but I need to have it. What’s the deal with it? It’s a St. Louis thing.

Brad: Well, the, the toasted ravioli and the pizza.

Billie: Oh, we’re gonna get to the pizza. I’m a New Yorker. We’re getting to the pizza.

Brad: All right, in your zip code, it’s hard to sell thin-crust pizza. I get it.

Billie: Convince me.

Brad: [Laughs]

Billie: No, seriously. Tell me about St. Louis pizza. Why should I come to St. Louis to have pizza and where should I go? Like, what is it? Why is it? Yeah, and where is it?

Brad: Have you seen the episode with Jimmy Kimmel? He, he got into this with somebody, uh, I’m trying to remember. Jayson Tatum or somebody, ’cause Jimmy Kimmel was not sold on St. Louis pizza. And they had this debate in the Jimmy Kimmell show. It was interesting. So same thing. He was like, “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think this is right. It’s not really pizza. So.”

Billie: What is it? What makes it St. Louis pizza?

Brad: Well, of course the thin crust, but I think what’s interesting is, you know, St. Louis is surrounded by farms and farmers, and so a lot of that product originally came right from the community. So the sauce was made locally. And today, Imo’s, which is probably the best known, uh, pizza in St. Louis, actually makes every pizza in downtown St. Louis. They literally brought their pizza manufacturing downtown, just a few blocks from the convention center. So it really is homemade, from St. Louis’s perspective.

Billie: So the cheese and the tomatoes, that’s all from the region.

Brad: And that was the, the real roots is, it’s such an agricultural region, but now it’s become a St. Louis thing because of the thin crust and, you know, the sauces, the provolone cheese.

Billie: Oh, you lost me at provolone. and I was totally coming around. I was like, ingredients from the local area, we do not have that in New York, but you, you lost me on the provolone.

Brad: And now nowhere, right. Outside of the New York and Chicago area code, it’s a must-try for you.

Billie: But you are new to the city too. When did you, when did you start?

Brad: Yeah. So I just started three months ago. Uh, literally just moved within the last three months. So for me, uh, I get the opportunity to meet the team, uh, to meet a lot of our stakeholders, but also to get to visit the community and look at it from the visitor’s eyes.

And as a leader, you don’t ever want to lose that. You always want to stay, you know, in touch with how the visitor views your community. And you know, having grown up visiting St. Louis, for me, that seven-year-old kid still sees St. Louis the way I saw it back then. But you know, while we’re proud of our past, there’s a lot happening in St. Louis and the destination’s poised for the next level. And that’s really what drew me to the job.

Billie: Yeah. So you had a lot of other offers. I listened to a podcast that there were a lot of offers that you could have taken, including New York. Was that right?

Brad: Yeah. You know, I had a great run in Myrtle Beach and then a great run in Puerto Rico. And of course the team in Puerto Rico just outperformed every expectation. But after seven years, I was ready for the next challenge. And it was really interesting timing because the New York jobs, Chicago jobs, San Francisco jobs, and St. Louis had all come open right about the same time. And so I was fortunate to get a look at all of those, but St. Louis felt like home.

Uh, first of all, it’s just such a great city. It has, uh, so much there in terms of the history, the architecture, the culture. It’s also a city ready to make a renaissance run. And when you look at what’s happening downtown, major redevelopment, a newly approved entertainment district, massive investments in the airport, the convention center, the Dome, there’s just a lot being invested in St. Louis right now, and our next big opportunity is to tell the story of St. Louis like it’s never been told before.

Billie: Now, I’ve also heard you talk about some of the challenges that St. Louis faces. What are some of the specific challenges for tourism that this city has to deal with?

Brad: You know, it’s interesting for me that the gap between the visitor’s perception and local’s perception is as big in St. Louis as I’ve ever seen in any community. Uh, the visitors tell us our dining sector is extraordinary. They rank the history, the art, the culture, every bit as high as the sports. So I think we’ve got to evolve the storytelling.

One of the areas in St. Louis that really shines, but most visitors are surprised to hear, are the neighborhoods. You have these really unique tapestry of neighborhoods that have rich history, vibrant culture, along with the unrivaled musical heritage in St. Louis. And for many people, they just don’t realize that exists.

So a, a trip to the Hill, or maybe going out to Maplewood and seeing some of the, uh, unique, uh, craft breweries there. Uh, some of the chefs that are creating or recreating entities in St. Louis, there’s a, a real significant entrepreneurial vibe in St. Louis that seems to really be kind of creating and reinventing the area. And so for me, telling those stories about the entrepreneurs in the neighborhoods as well as the iconic history of St. Louis, it’s a blend of past and future that’s really exciting as this community reinvents itself.

Billie: Certain cities have a stereotype or an image that outsiders don’t, you know, have. New York certainly has that, that we’re rude, right. And so I’m wondering if there’s misperceptions like that that you have to deal with?

Brad: You know, if you think about St. Louis, it was the original gathering place, right? It started, it was built, uh, on the rivers, right? It’s where the rivers converged, it’s where trading happened. And then of course it became a place to connect and converge as you head westward. And of course, we’ve all heard the story of Route 66, which is not just a road, it’s a, it’s a lifestyle, right? It’s a symbol of the, the free expression and the expansion and the growth, but westward and then coming back.

So St. Louis has always been that gathering place. I think now the question is where do we take that. And I think one of the things we’re seeing, and the research actually affirms this, is that St. Louis is really benefiting from being a great playground for urban exploration, which is particularly important for the younger travelers.

It’s a place where you can find yourself by getting lost. You’ve got Forest Park, this massive urban park, but within that you have an extraordinary art museum, a history museum. You’ve got the Muny, which just got, you know, major recognition on Broadway for some of the Broadway shows that are, are there during the summer.

And so you’ve got this sort of, uh, emerging identity as an iconic city that’s undergoing a lot of change, but yet perhaps has never been defined or maybe redefined in the minds of the traveler. And so whether you’re coming, you know, traveling through Route 66 or looking for just a great place to get away, easily accessible, St. Louis offers a lot, yet, I don’t know that story has been told.

So we’re hoping to elevate that and expand our reach by inviting visitors that have never considered St. Louis to maybe give it a shot and look at it, a great place to enjoy some fun and many free activities.

Billie: Yeah, there’s two things that you just talked about that I wanna touch on. And the first is, so you mentioned Route 66, which is coming up on a big anniversary. And there’s some other anniversaries happening in the country, America 250, and lots of things going on all over the country. Are there things that you’re planning in St. Louis in 2025 and 2026 that you want people to know about that are either connected to those events or to city history or activities?

Brad: Well, you mentioned the two key ones, the Centennial Route 66, and of course that is very important to a lot of destinations in the Midwest. And when you think about Route 66 and coming through, uh, St. Louis, uh, many of the original parts of Route 66 are still actively in use, you know, the chain of Rocks Bridge, which was the original bridge, it’s now kind of a doglegged bridge and it’s been turned into a walking trail, so you can actually experience that.

But I think one of the best parts of it is going into some of the communities that touch Route 66, like Maplewood and Kirkwood. So whether you’re looking for that Main Street America experience, or you wanna find some of the quirky restaurants, or the cafés or the diners, and whether it’s for a day or a few days or a week, there’s a lot to explore in and around that.

But the other, of course, that we can’t forget is the 250th. And for us in St. Louis, that’s not only, uh, a story of our past, but what lies ahead in the future. Uh, just recently, within the last few weeks, we reopened the old courthouse. This is an historic courthouse, just a few blocks from the Arch. And the old courthouse is where famous cases like Dred and Harriet Scott were heard, which you know, many of us read about in history.

One that I never heard about in history, and yet it happened right there in St. Louis was a case led by Virginia Minor. She was the woman that led the effort to get women the right to vote 70 years before they got that right. So when you think about the history of St. Louis, it’s not just about the city and region. It’s consequential history that changed the face of our nation, and whether it’s Virginia Minor or Dred and Harriet Scott or assorted other stories, some of them are maybe sensationalized and some of them are more just pivotal to history itself. And then all of this is within a few blocks of Cardinal Stadium, uh, where you can go see a great baseball game or the convention center if you’re meeting there.

So it’s a lot happening in that area and it’s such, uh, such a vibrant time to be in St. Louis as it’s reimagining itself.

Billie: Yeah. That’s really connecting as we’re researching and writing about all these America 250 events, what I’m seeing is this real interconnectedness between, between cities and, and regions of the country that I think most of us don’t think about as much as we’re just going to visit places, how it, how something that happened in that city affects us on our day-to-day lives, which those two cases certainly did.

Brad: And I think that’s always been the heartbeat of Afar, is you connect us not just to the travel destinations, but the people that make it such a special place. And in St. Louis, one of the great things for me in learning this new community is not just experiencing the attractions and the entertainment, but the people that make it such a special place.

And as we evolve our storytelling, [it’s] gotta be not just about the destination and the experience itself, but the people behind it that make it such an extraordinary community and great place to visit.

Billie: Yeah. So that’s what brings me back to the other thing I wanted to ask you about was, you mentioned like the arts and culture, and it seems like St. Louis has made this very conscious decision to spotlight arts and music and culture as a way to, encourage people to, to travel there. right. You’ve got the, the new 21c Museum Hotel open in 2023, and a lot of the arts and museums are free, right? How is that working?

Brad: The residents of St. Louis actually voted many years ago to tax themselves so that they can make all of the attractions free. And so when you think about a world-class zoo, extraordinary zoo, they’re doing a lot of research as well. Uh, you’ve got an extraordinary art museum. I mean, we have Van Goghs in St. Louis, who knew? Uh, you’ve got the history museum, which of course we mentioned the Muny. A lot of museums on Route 66, the National Transportation Museum, which has 190 exhibits. And many of these are free. And then you’ve got a few attractions, while they’re not free, they’re incredibly valuable in terms of what they offer like the National Blues Museum. I was blown away at the musical heritage of St. Louis. And how many blues and rock artists actually started in St. Louis or have ties to St. Louis. So it’s a destination where you can learn a lot and experience a lot without having to spend a lot.

For those who’ve never been to St. Louis, the first impression is it’s a gritty community, a tough community. It built itself up by pulling themselves up, bootstraps. But what surprised me is the warmth, the hospitality, the friendliness. I mean, this is a community that taxed itself just so visitors can enjoy things for free.

I think one of the things that St. Louis really prides itself on is being a very hospitable community. And so for us, we wanna make sure that we don’t just show you great places, we connect you to great people and make you feel welcomed in St. Louis. So it’s a community that really understands the power of connection, the power of travel, and they just want more people to visit and enjoy St. Louis.

Billie: Thanks for joining us for this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, you’ll find links to everything we discussed today, as well as Explore St. Louis’s website and social media handles. And be sure to follow along this week to hear more interviews with industry experts.

You can find more Views From Afar on afar.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy. And be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland, with assistance from Michelle Baran and Billie Cohen. Music composition from Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to their other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers Podcast.