“This isn’t welcoming guests to a business, this is welcoming guests to tribal homeland.” “How are the gaming revenues, the gaming facilities, the gaming employment really enhancing the tribal community and the region and the community around the tribe? It’s a very different way of understanding gaming and welcoming guests,” Spilde said.

Kate Spilde, chair of the Sycuan Institute on Tribal Gaming at San Diego State University, said renaming a destination spot with 35 years of brand equity is an example of the Serrano tribe “bringing their culture and language forward and emphasizing the ‘tribal’ in tribal gaming and really establishing and reminding guests that this is tribal land.” “Ultimately their values led them to this decision.”

But it was so important to the tribe to be able to honor their ancestral lands and culture. Vosloo added: “It’s not usually a clear-cut decision to sunset one brand and introduce another, especially when the original has a strong reputation and so much heritage.

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