La Paz Chattanooga, in an effort to empower the local Latino community and bridge the gap between the general population and the Latino market, has begun working with local businesses to provide marketing resources and diversity training.
La Paz Chattanooga has implemented a business development arm, branded as Compañía (Spanish for ‘company’) to offer businesses the opportunity to better serve their Latino employees and patrons.
Among the businesses to work with La Paz on this effort are the Tennessee Aquarium, who have held multiple cultural competency trainings for their staff and participated in a Secret Shopper study, to include feedback given by Latino ‘shoppers’ on how to improve their inclusivity with marketing materials and bilingual staff and volunteers.
Vision Hospitality has broadened their diversity efforts by including Spanish-speaking interpreters for their staff meetings and translated human resources materials - including a Spanish voiceover for their popular employee welcome video.
Other local companies, like EPB, have reached out to La Paz to help them better tap into the Latino market via advertising efforts. In conjunction with marketing their new Latino Channel package - released earlier this year - La Paz and EPB hosted a launch event branded as ‘Mundialito’ (Little World Cup) to engage the Latino community and promote the service in time for the 2018 World Cup.
La Paz Chattanooga hopes to encourage Chattanooga’s business community to assess their own diversity and inclusion efforts and understand that Latinos in Chattanooga comprise a vital component of the general market, said officials.
“Partnering with La Paz to train our team to interact and make our Latino guests feel more comfortable visiting the Tennessee Aquarium will help both our revenue numbers and our guest satisfaction scores," said Keith Sanford, president and CEO of Tennessee Aquarium. "They even sent mystery shoppers to check how we were doing and followed up with ideas for correction. The team work is great."
Other businesses and agencies La Paz has worked with include Chattanooga Symphony & Opera, CARTA, Chattanooga Police Department, Chattanooga 2.0, the City of Chattanooga, Tech Goes Home, NECA, The Lookouts, M&M Industries, Southern Champion Tray, and the Hamilton County Department of Education.
For more information about La Paz’s consulting services, email Angela Garcia at agarcia@lapazchattanooga.org