Dst In Sarasota Voyage Tampa – January 12, 2021

January 12, 2021

Exploring Life & Business with Tamara Hauser of Discover Sarasota Tours

Voyage Tampa — January 12, 2021

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tamara Hauser.

Hi Tamara, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
“As a performer, director, and producer, I enjoy the creative process of bringing stories to life. And as a businessperson, I saw an opportunity to do that here with tours that focus on Sarasota’s amazingly rich culture and history.” Before moving to Sarasota in 2015, Tammy was the CEO of a consulting firm for arts organizations and other nonprofits called Blue Sky Thinking LLC. Prior to her consulting career, Tammy spent 15 years working in Minneapolis as an arts administrator for museums, regional theater and dance companies, and historic presenting halls for Broadway Theater, concerts, and live radio shows. She is also the creator of The Ultimate Pajama Party™, a grown-up girls’ slumber party extravaganza and commercial theater enterprise. Tammy has two children who share her love of travel, entertainment, and tours. She is an avid dog lover and credits Poppy, her Pomeranian princess rescue dog with helping her come up with the idea for Discover Sarasota Tours—after Poppy fell in love with trolleys in Kennebunkport, Maine. Max the Papillon is the newest addition to the DST team serving dual roles as The ChillMobile’ s Head of PR (puppy relations) and as a Trolley Cottage mascot.

How did DST begin?
There were no tours offered of the city of Sarasota, yet we are a huge tourist town with a lot of fun and interesting history. So, I created tours to reflect on those aspects. We started with a City Tour, A Circus History Tour and a Haunted Tour and have grown to offer 14 unique tours. Six run seasonally and the rest run year-round with new tours offered each year. Our cute and charming Vintage Sarasota Gift Shop in our charming Trolley Cottage depot add to our visitor’s fun experience. We carry the largest selection of authentic Sarasota and FL gifts, collectibles, memorabilia and just fun zany stuff. We also have The ChillMobile our vintage 1979 Good Humor Ice Cream Truck for guests and residents of Sarasota.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Of course not! We started in Red Tide and have just survived through COVID. We faced all the challenges any new business does with cash flow issues and constant work and struggles to create something new and make sure people know what we are offering and keeping the quality consistent. We act like a repertory theater company since most of us come from that world. We create new tours together using people’s skills and interests, so we keep things fresh and fun. It takes time and the right mix of people to make a family work and we had just come together in a great way when disaster struck. Just when we were hitting our stride, we were shut down on March 20th and reopened in June of 2020. Our ChillMobile went on the road full time to sell ice cream in April and that has provided a new unexpected source of revenues when we could not offer tours. Since then, each month has been a new challenge. In November we purchased a 12 person passenger van and will be offering half-day specialty tours starting in January. Tours have been much slower since the end of October, so we are really looking forward to the season!

As you know, we’re big fans of Discover Sarasota Tours. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Discover Sarasota Tours offers entertaining, interactive, and informative air-conditioned trolley tours of the most interesting people, intriguing places, and amazing stories that shaped Sarasota’s rich cultural past. Our air-conditioned 90-minute trolley tours embark from our Downtown Trolley Depot, a 1930’s charming cottage in the historic Painted Village at 1826 4th Street with FREE on-site parking and a wonderful gift shop of curated collectibles, gifts and memorabilia representing Sarasota history and all of our tour themes. Tour themes include City Sightseeing, Circus Secrets, The Amish Experience, Psychic Sundays, Infamous Sarasota Happy Hour Tour, Public Art, Art Crawl, Dine Along, Rainbows & Unicorns, Boutiques & Bubbles, Tiki Trolley Trivia, and Haunted Sarasota. Special entertaining-themed holiday tours for St. Patrick’s Day, Valentines, Halloween and Christmas are also offered. New Tours for 2021 include an interactive Murder Mystery Tour and a Drink, Drag & Disco tour.

How do you think about luck?
I believe in favorable times and lady luck, but most luck only comes after hard and long preparation. So, we work very hard to stay very lucky!

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