Downtown lodges touting wintertime in Crested Butte

Heads in beds; feet on streets

A new organization is focusing on bringing people to downtown Crested Butte and making sure they have a good guest experience when they are here. The Downtown Crested Butte Lodging Association is a conglomeration made up primarily of the lodges located in Crested Butte.

“We want to start communicating and working together with the town to put heads in beds and feet on the street,” explained Andrea Greene of the Ruby Mountain bed-and-breakfast to the Town Council at its meeting September 7. “We have gotten together to support each other and the town. We have a three-year plan outlined.”
“It’s a wonderful idea and we need to know from you how we can help,” said mayor Leah Williams. “We don’t have a dedicated admissions tax so we have a limited funding base for things like marketing. But we can provide you a low level of funding and work with the Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center to provide you some help.”
“We don’t have a brand recognition up there with CBMR [Crested Butte Mountain Resort] so we decided to band together and put the focus down here,” explained Greene. “We have a positive relationship with the ski area.”
“Our focus is Crested Butte and not other areas of the county,” added Mike Nolan of the Elk Mountain Lodge. “Our main goal is to brand downtown Crested Butte. CBMR uses a lot of photos from downtown to market the ski area and when guests come, that’s not necessarily what they get. For those that are looking for that small town atmosphere, we want to provide that.”
Williams reiterated that the Visitor Center facilities could help since the town owns that building at the Four-way Stop. “Even if there is an easy to use phone at the Visitors Center that connects to your businesses, that’s a benefit that we’d encourage,” she said.
“We have talked with the Chamber to move toward making that a better presentation, and asked them to separate out the lodging to make it easy on visitors to see where the lodges are located and what type of lodging they can expect,” said Chris Haver of the Purple Mountain Lodge.
“Maybe we can encourage them to put up some inexpensive signage promoting downtown lodging in the breezeway at the Visitors Center,” suggested Nolan. “We want to market downtown specifically.”
“That’s our Visitors Center and you guys combining forces is an awesome idea,” said councilperson Dan Escalante.
“All of us communicate regularly to let each other know what’s available at the downtown offices,” said Greene. “We’d like to see a town liaison to help us, and help us get the restaurants and retail involved as well. We want people to become more aware of what we’re all doing.”
Nolan said the group was working on getting a logo together but right now “the priority might be to get a sign posted for people driving into town at night looking for lodging.”
Sandy Fails of the Old Town Inn emphasized, “The locals are a big part of our marketing. People listen to them.
“The Old Town Inn is probably the second visitor center in the summer and we like that aspect,” she continued. “When we are full and we call around to other lodges, the people love that. They love that we work together to get the guest in the right place. It’s a great first impression. People love that we are working together and not duking it out.”
Fails also said that it’s not just about the lodging. “We want to promote not just our businesses but Crested Butte in particular,” she said. “Especially in the winter. And especially if you don’t ski. It’s a cool place to visit even if you don’t ski. It is romantic. It is cool. And people love the town. I think we can promote winter tourism beyond skiing and then everyone benefits. That is our marketing challenge this season.”
To that effect, the group has started the process of looking to pay for ads and get promotional material out letting people know that downtown Crested Butte is a great place to come this winter whether you hit the hill or not.
Councilperson John Wirsing volunteered to be the town liaison with the group.
The group came back to the council Monday, September 20 and asked for financial help, which they received. The council heard a request from the lodges at the Monday meeting asking the town to match $4,500 raised by the new association. The money would go primarily toward building and promoting a new website, www.downtowncrestedbutte.com. Haver told the council the goal is to use the website to promote and drive tourism downtown this winter.
“We want to show off the charm of downtown,” he said. “We want to highlight the lodges, the restaurants, bars, stores and activities downtown. Summers are starting to take care of themselves so we want to promote the winter season.”
The council felt it was an excellent project and voted to give them half the money now and review another request for the rest of the money in early December.