The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Marketing experiences to grow tourism
The Gunnison Crested Butte Tourism Association (TA) has hit the ground pedaling when it comes to promoting the Gunnison Valley as a mountain biking destination. A new trail app is expected to launch within the next couple of weeks, just in time for an industry trade show in Denver, and signage is slated for Mt. Crested Butte, Deer Creek, and both ends of the Snodgrass trail.
Yet the TA has four additional priorities to support and grow summer tourism. The organization is promoting summer flights into the valley; looking for ways to support local events and activities poised for growth; helping the local chambers of commerce run business workshops to improve guest experiences; and continuing to reach out to a steady and significant summer market—travelers simply looking for new and interesting places to visit.
The initiatives seem to mark a shift in the way the TA functions, and County Commissioner Paula Swenson credits the change to a different way of thinking about marketing. “Before, the TA was a destination marketing organization where they were marketing the destination, the hotels, the packages at the hotels. This new track [the board is] taking is marketing the experiences here, and that is exciting to see because that’s how people plan,” Swenson said.
According to TA director John Norton, mountain biking will continue to be the main focus, but the other four priorities will also aim to make an impact on summer tourism. He outlined those efforts for the Crested Butte News.
“The mountain biking effort is the number one effort. That is the way we’re going to build our non-snow months of business,” Norton said. “The second is a defensive summer tourism posture. People drive across the borders of the state and may have a destination in mind and may not, and we’re going to be present in all of those Colorado Tourism offices and welcome centers.”
It is a big market, he added, and while he doesn’t expect the market to grow significantly, he did identify it as one that needs to be maintained. To that end, the TA has revamped its vacation planner into an updated brochure and placed ads in Colorado travel magazines.
“Third, we’re jumping in as necessary with the [Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority] to keep the flights rolling,” Norton said.
This year, there are 150 percent more seats available on direct flights from Houston to Gunnison, and so far sales have grown by only 50 percent.
“We’re in the middle of the pack in terms of the percentage of seats purchased from Houston to mountain airports, so at first glance that says that maybe people are slow booking this year,” Norton said. He saw an opportunity to help promote those flights as the TA did last winter when March sales were slow. At the time, the TA offered a free lift ticket with flights booked during the promotion and offered a $99 companion fare, which sold more than 300 additional inbound seats.
“We’ve already launched one promotion, which was a postcard mailing to homeowners in Houston with a schedule of our summer events and a notice that United is again offering flights from Houston to Gunnison,” Norton said.
An electronic promotion is slated to begin in the next couple of weeks advertising the flights to the broader travel market in Houston.
“[Supporting the air program] is critical because if we move backwards on the flights, we won’t have them anymore,” Norton said.
The TA’s fourth priority is to support summer events and activities that have opportunities to grow. Norton and the TA board have reached out to both the National Park Service and Cattlemen’s Days, looking for opportunities to promote boating on Blue Mesa Reservoir and increase attendance at Cattlemen’s Days. “They think they can grow their attendance and grow the lodging behind Cattlemen’s, so we’re going to listen to them,” Norton said.
Finally, the TA is providing financial backing to the Gunnison Country Chamber of Commerce and the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce to host workshops for local businesses deigned to help them improve guest and customer experiences, with the ultimate goal of increasing guest retention (repeat visitors to the Valley). “It’s a fact that the TA sponsorship is the appropriate thing to do,” Norton said. “We don’t want to lose visitors.”
The TA’s swift action is exciting to see for Swenson, especially the mountain biking efforts. “We have a great biking experience like no other. We have more bike trails than anywhere in the state,” she says.
And as for the results, Norton thinks it won’t be long until Gunnison Valley residents see more people in the Valley. “I think when the time comes, you’re going to see a lot more people coming here to mountain bike that haven’t been here before,” he said.
