The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Annual agreement reached
A number of tourists are drawn to the recreational opportunities in the town of Mt. Crested Butte, thanks to the marketing efforts of the Gunnison/Crested Butte Tourism Association (TA)—and in 2009 the TA has agreed to make a better effort determining just what that number is.
On Tuesday, January 6, the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council approved an annual funding agreement for the TA, providing the marketing organization with $200,000 of the town’s admissions tax funds.
The agreement for 2009 includes a promise by the TA to measure the effectiveness of the town’s financial contribution in reeling in visitors to the town.
Last year, Mt. Crested Butte provided the TA with $250,000 from its admissions tax fund. The TA has an annual budget of approximately $1 million and gets the rest of its funding through a 4 percent tax on overnight lodging in the county.
Mt. Crested Butte’s admissions tax is 4 percent, charged on things such as lift tickets, snowmobile rentals and concerts. Twenty-five percent of the funds are used to support the Mountain Express bus service, and 75 percent must be spent on marketing and advertising for the town of Mt. Crested Butte.
In recent years, the town has spent part of its admissions tax funds on other marketing causes, such as airline promotions with Crested Butte Mountain Resort, or pumping up the Crested Butte Music Festival. As a way to measure the benefits of each grant request, the town began asking groups to calculate the financial return the town sees from each marketing program.
Earlier this winter the Town Council sat down with the Local Marketing District (LMD) board of directors, which oversees the TA, and discussed the possibility of a performance measurement guarantee in their yearly funding agreement.
During the Mt. Crested Butte council meeting on January 6, town attorney Rod Landwehr said a new provision had been added to the annual agreement, requiring the TA to develop such a performance measurement program for the upcoming year. “We wanted this performance measurement program in place to see how 2009 goes in order to evaluate funding in future years,” Landwehr said.
However, the performance measurement program hasn’t been fully developed quite yet, but TA board president Joellen Fonken says it’s in progress. “We’re putting together a report they will look at during quarterly meetings,” Fonken says. She says the TA will be developing more specifics on the performance measurement program during a board meeting this week.
The 2009 agreement also includes several other changes, such as eliminating the terms “donor and donee,” which “ implied this money is a gift… We clarified they are an independent contractor providing marketing services pursuant to this agreement,” Landwehr said. “We’re trying to clean up the agreement.”
Landwehr said the LMD board of directors had already signed the agreement. The Mt. Crested Butte Town Council unanimously approved it as well.
Mt. Crested Butte’s admissions tax may go before voters for renewal in April 2010.
