Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 

Visit SLO CAL is committed to ensuring our work helps San Luis Obispo County become a more equitable and inclusive destination, so that all who travel into and through the destination feel welcomed and embraced. 

Our work is built on our vision of maintaining and bettering our resident’s quality of life and to enhance our visitors’ experiences. That means being willing to learn and participating in difficult conversations around equity and inclusion, as well as leading the Travel & Tourism industry to be more aware and purposeful in the ways they represent and support all people.

We value all of our investors, partners, stakeholders, team and visitors, and we desire to create an inclusive and equitable environment built on a foundation of trust, collaboration and action.
 

We are committed to the following shared values:
 

• Understanding what equity is and acknowledging that not all people have the same starting point

• Being life-long learners regarding equity, inclusion and listening, having difficult conversations and committing to repair relationships when we misstep

• Building and maintaining an inclusive community where all people feel welcomed and comfortable    

• Stepping up and speaking out when we see injustices happening in our industry and supporting our strategic partners to provide support and education when we see injustices happening in their organizations, industries and in our communities

• Working to ensure our intent aligns with our impact
   

We are committed to the following actions:
 

• Working toward and maintaining diverse representation on our board, committees and team

• Providing mandatory training for our board, committees and team and voluntary education to our investors, partners and stakeholders on how to build equitable and inclusive businesses and communities

• Observing commemorative months through the promotion of Travel & Tourism businesses owned by members of the associated communities

• Being inclusive in our hosting of media and tour operators on individual and group FAM tours

• Promoting to our industry the use of storefront displays communicating to consumers that people of all make-ups are welcome

• Using assets that are representative of a diverse makeup of people in our marketing campaigns and owned channels

• Building deeper relationships with our current and potential agency partners to ensure we continue inclusive contracting practices

Visit SLO CAL strives to build a deeper understanding of what it means to be an equitable and inclusive organization and to take an active role in encouraging our industry and community to do the same.

We aim to remove barriers that hinder our residents and visitors from making SLO CAL their community or travel destination of choice. Addressing equity and inclusion through exploration and collaboration helps us build a stronger, more unified community—a community where we see race, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, religion, visible and invisible disabilities, socioeconomic status and all the intersecting identities therein and we know that in these differences lies our strength.

We are committed to a regular review of our practices and to maintaining data driven systems that hold us accountable to ourselves and our investors, partners and stakeholders.

We encourage all of our investors, partners and stakeholders to commit to these shared values and to develop their own action steps to become more equitable and inclusive in their work.

We strongly condemn any exclusion, violence, verbal abuse, prejudice or other action by our investors, partners and stakeholders that run counter to our values of equity and inclusion. As such, Visit SLO CAL will limit engagement opportunities to investors, partners and stakeholders who engage in behaviors inconsistent with these values.