DECEMBER 2007 E-News ISSUE IV
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! And, if you wish to “unsubscribe” please “reply” to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
INCREDIBLE TOWNS, INCREDIBLE EVENTS! Wow, what wonderful ways to bring in the winter (although it’s really not winter until December 22!) and the holiday season. Tons of snow! Gunnison outdid itself once again with a magnificent Night of Lights and Main Street bustling with lots of people! The north valley residents came together for the Crested Butte Holiday Procession and Tree Lighting, making it extra special this year for the camera crew from ABC’s Good Morning America Weekend Window show. The TA was happy to be a partner with the Chamber of Commerce and CBMR on this event. We’re told it’s airing, Sunday, December 23. It was good to see so many people turn out for the event and this will be incredible visibility for our valley!
AIR SERVICE and BUS TRANSPORTATION information can be found on GunnisonValleyRTA.org. We hope many of you have experienced the RTA’s new winter bus service! There are 11 trips a day from Gunnison to Mt. Crested Butte. And it’s FREE! The new bus schedule is posted on GunnisonValleyRTA.org. Check out the new web site!
PUBLIC RELATIONS NEWS
Recent media hits – With both the TA and CBMR working hard to inform the media about our valley and host visiting journalists, we are fortunate to be landing excellent coverage. Recent examples include New York Times’ T-Style Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Women’s Skiing, Miami Herald Travel Magazine, Germany’s Eltern magazine, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Grand Junction Sentinel, Austin American Statesmen, frommers.com, bestfares.com, skinet.com, thefamilytravelfiles.com, takingthekids.com, travelwithkids.about.com and associatedcontent.com. Eileen Ogintz’s syndicated “Taking the Kids” column features Crested Butte regularly, including recent hits in Texas, New York and Connecticut newspapers.
TA forms Local Awareness Committee - The TA’s Local Awareness Committee led by board member, Molly Eldridge, recently held focus groups on November 28 and 29 in Gunnison and Crested Butte, respectively. The TA would like to thank our facilitator, Margot Levy, and the 16 participants for sharing their time and providing valuable feedback. The goal is to use this information to develop an awareness campaign and help educate locals about the mission and direction of the Tourism Association.
Call for information for Summer/Spring 2008 press releases - Writing of summer/fall 2008 press releases will begin in late 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.
INTERNET NEWS
Unique visitors to the web site, year-to-date as of November is over 694,000. That’s more traffic than we saw all last year. In fact, year-to-date growth is 87% 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.
CBMR’s Friends & Family Fly Free has been a major home run for our Internet messaging this season. A custom landing page was created for different ads in the market (www.gunnisoncrestedbutte.com/flyfree ). Since 12.06.07 the page has received 3273 page views, 1273 people clicked on the request form, and 796 people actually submitted a form! That’s a 24% conversion rate!
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. An emerging search term for our web site is “Gunnison Airport” where we link guests directly to United and American Airlines as well as provide a flight map and detailed
“Book now" functionality was remodeled this fall and there is live “check availability” capability for all partners on GunnisonCrestedButte.com. Email Rob to learn more about this. The TA encourages businesses to use a specific toll free number on the TA web site so that you can track the number of calls you are receiving from your deals or business listings. We can recommend a telecommunications firm who charges $.07 per minute and toll free numbers are free! So you can have 1 or 100 numbers for just $.07 per minute, just call Rob at 970/641-7992 for more information..
GunnisonValleyRTA.org: The RTA web site home page has had a face lift to integrate the new logo design, and is currently featuring the FREE BUS schedules- front and center. Schedules, route maps and other RTA marketing materials are available for individual and business use to help promote the RTA’s programs… Check it our! www.GunnisonValleyRTA.org
Community Calendar Update: www.GCBcalendar.com. Special thanks to all who have participated and loaded events!
NEWS FLASH: CBTV is displaying GCBcalendar.com events ALL winter and into summer!!! Take advantage of this “FREE” marketing opportunity! A number of new functions have been added to the site including the ability to add and edit multiple events, as well as upload PDF’s as images! Rob is available to help or answer questions, 970/641-7992 or by email.
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, United Express 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 off the charts! As of mid-November, we had already surpassed all of 2006! Media ads and public relations are generating great interest for Gunnison County.
UPCOMING EVENTS
12/23 Moonlight Snowshoe Tour, Crested Butte Mountain Resort
12/24 Full Moon Ski & Snowshoe Tour, Crested Butte Nordic Center
12/24 Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade, Crested Butte Mountain Resort
12/28 Crested Butte Arts Center 20th Anniversary Gala Celebration
12/31 Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s New Year’s Eve Celebration & Profurious Park & Pipe Series
READER FEEDBACK
Please let us know what you think about our newsletter and if you’d like to be entered to win a great prize, email your recommendation for the “best winter photo spot” in Gunnison County and why it’s your favorite. JChaney@GunnisonCounty.org
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.
WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE HERE! Posters, brochures, bumper stickers, pins and bicycle tags are available! Just call 641-7992 and we’ll get you fixed up for the rest of the winter!