October 2007 E-News ISSUE III
Greetings from the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association (TA), the official marketing organization of beautiful Gunnison County! Each month our goal is to bring you news about the TA and other useful information. Your feedback is invited and welcomed! Read on!
SAVE THE DATE! The 2007 TA Annual Meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 13 from 7:30 am - 8:30 am at Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, located on the corner of Elk and 2nd Street (second floor of the old Town Hall). Join us for breakfast, information sharing and Q & A. The 2008 Annual Meeting will be held in Gunnison. For those unable to make the trip up valley on the 13th, the TA will be doing a similar presentation at the Gunnison Arts Center on Monday, November 19 from 5 pm - 6pm.
TOURISM WORKS FOR ALL OF US! ... DID YOU KNOW THAT total state and local taxes from Colorado visitors in 2006 was $709 million? Colorado had 4.7 million residents in 2006; this equals $150 in tax revenues for every man, woman and child in Colorado. Without Colorado visitors, we would all be paying more taxes or the state would be providing less in services.
IN GUNNISON COUNTY, TOURISM PAYS FOR TOURISM! The Local Marketing District (LMD) 4% tax (paid only by overnight lodging visitors), and the Mt. CB Admissions tax (paid mostly by skiing visitors) funds tourism marketing via the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association.
TA'S THREE-YEAR REVENUE GOAL In August 2003 the TA Board of Directors set a goal to increase Local Marketing District Tax by 40% over a three year period, July 2004 - July 2007. During this measurement period, the tax was increased by 31%, making 94% of the established revenue goal. The benchmark was $799,536 and revenues reached $1,047,384 to a goal of $1,119,350. Thank you to everyone who supported our efforts and we look forward to continued economic growth in tourism as an important part of our overall economy in Gunnison County.
AIR SERVICE and BUS TRANSPORTATION information can be found on GunnisonValleyRTA.org. New for this winter will be eleven trips a day from Gunnison to Mt. Crested Butte. And it's FREE! This new bus schedule will be posted very soon!
PUBLIC RELATIONS NEWS
Recent media hits - Outside, National Geographic Adventure (Gunnison named one of Top 50 Adventure Towns), LA Times, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, www.msnbc.com, and Conde Nast Traveler's www.concierge.com were some good national media hits. The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Colorado Springs Gazette, Boulder Daily Camera, Grand Junction Sentinel and Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine frequently provide coverage as well.
Our big Associated Press pickup for this summer was an article about summer activities in ski towns, which mentioned the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival and appeared in many papers across the country including the Boston Herald. The Wildflower Festival also appeared in several other publications. Last year it was the Crested Butte Wild Mushroom Festival, which continues to receive excellent media coverage with a writer from Fortune Small Business attending this year's event and the Denver Post prominently featuring it on the front page of its Food Section. This fall, we've already received an AP pickup for this winter with CBMR's Ski FREE promotion and the great lodging deals being offered in Mt. Crested Butte, Crested Butte and Gunnison during this time. Fishing in the Gunnison area also seems to be a popular topic.
New Harlequin book series set in Crested Butte - On a fun note, Crested Butte is the backdrop for a new series of at least five books in Harlequin's American Romance line. Written by Bailey resident Cindi Meyers, the first book "Marriage On Her Mind" was released on Oct. 1, with the main character being employed by the Chamber of Commerce! Meyers obviously did her homework with mentions of Donita's, Teocalli Tamale, The Ruby, Crested Butte Mountain Resort and more.
TA forms Local Awareness Committee - The TA's board of directors has formed a Local Awareness Committee led by Molly Eldridge. The committee met for the first time on Sept. 27 to brainstorm ideas for local public relations efforts. The goal is to keep the public informed about the TA's purpose and efforts to drive tourism to the Gunnison-Crested Butte Valley.
Call for information for Summer/Spring 2008 press releases - Writing of summer/fall 2008 press releases will begin in December. The Tourism Association's summer/fall media kit CD is distributed in early February and all press releases are loaded in the media room at www.GunnisonCrestedButte.com. All summer/fall event information should be submitted to the TA's PR Director Beth Buehler at bethbuehler@qwest.net by Dec. 15. Call Beth at 349-1168 with any questions.
The winter/spring 2007-2008 media kit CD was mailed in early September, and all releases are loaded at www.GunnisonCrestedButte.com/media.
INTERNET NEWS
Unique visitors to the web site, year-to-date as of September is over 500,000. That's more traffic than we saw all last year. In fact, year-to-date growth is 119% compared to this time last year! The factors driving this growth are paid print and online advertisements and links from e-mail broadcasts using the TA's lists and purchased consumer and travel agent lists.
Growth factors primarily include the more than 10 million emails that have been sent out year-to-date. Big "click" attractions in the emails are the Stay & Play Deals provided by our Marketing Partners. Thanks to our partners! Marketing Partners needing more information call Rob at 641-7992 or send him an email.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work is ongoing and helps keep us current on industry trends. This is just one part of the strategy to help our site be found organically in searches. Paid-for advertising (PPC) on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc. are also used. These top search engines provide 25% of our site traffic. Direct access users typing in "gunnisoncrestedbutte.com" remains the number one referral to the site, so we know our print ads, direct mailings and public relations efforts are working!
On September 15, the site changed from the summer theme to winter. Icon winter event pages and GunnisonGetAway.com have been updated.
"Book now" functionality has been remodeled and there is live "check availability" capability for all partners on GunnisonCrestedButte.com. Email to learn more about this.
Sell your inventory online: To sign up to manage lodging inventory or listings online go to www.gcbta.com behind the "central reservations button." There is also capability for outfitters, activities and events to load their information to sell on the TA web site. For questions call Rob at 641-7992.
Community Calendar Update: www.GCBcalendar.com. Special thanks to all who have participated and loaded events! The shear number of events loaded since launch in April just goes to show, putting the power in the people's hands is very effective! Log in and add your event today at www.GCBcalendar.com. It's very easy to do! Remember it's important to add winter events now as we are seeing more and more winter requests each day. NEWS FLASH: CBTV will be displaying GCBcalendar.com events ALL winter and into summer!!! Take advantage of this "FREE" marketing opportunity!
ADVERTISING NEWS
Recent Gunnison-Crested Butte advertising - Frontier Airlines inflight magazine and a .60 second winter video running on all Frontier Airlines flights, a 4 x 5 foot scrolling winter ad located in the Montrose Airport, banner ads on Colorado.com, DiscoverColorado.com, ColoradoInfo.com, KansasCity.com, Texas Monthly Magazine, Austin Monthly Magazine, Kansas City Spaces Magazine, Oklahoma Magazine, SkyWest Airlines inflight magazines, High Country Anglers Magazine, American Cowboy & True West Magazines; Colorado Springs Gazette; E-broadcast communication to reach targeted winter travelers, five Internet travel web sites and more!Requests for brochures as a result of our print and online advertising are up 29% as of September 1, so our ads are generating great interest for Gunnison County.
UPCOMING EVENTS
November 17 - Crested Butte Mountain Resort and the Crested Butte Nordic Center both open
November 23 - 25 Crested Butte Nordic Center's Thanksgiving Training Camp
November 25 - December 15 - Ski FREE at Crested Butte Mountain Resort
November 30 - Gunnison Night of Lights
READER FEEDBACK
Please let us know what you think about our newsletter content and format and, if you'd like to be entered to win a great prize, email your recommendation for the "best dining spot" in Gunnison County and why it's your favorite. JChaney@GunnisonCounty.org