Turning down the TAPP on winter

Moving efforts to shoulder seasons, other winter sports

By Cayla Vidmar

The Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP), formerly the Tourism Association, is planning on focusing less on marketing downhill skiing and riding, instead “TAPP-ing” into shoulder seasons and other winter and summer sports. The reason, as explained by TAPP executive director John Norton, is that Vail Resorts (VR) likely has winter ski resort marketing under control.

“We expect to coordinate year-round with VR marketing,” writes Norton, but he explains, “It’s easy for us to imagine that VR’s marketing efforts are going to be much more successful than ours have ever been.”

Organizations that market Nordic skiing, winter fat biking and winter events can continue to expect support through the TAPP winter grant cycle, Norton says. He also says they envision less spending in the winter on alpine skiing as “increasing demands on our funds come from the ICElab, Sustainable Tourism and Outdoor Recreation (STOR) efforts and support for Western Colorado University.”

Norton expects the same amount of money to be spent on marketing spring, summer and fall as last year, with focused efforts on May and October in Gunnison, and June and late August and September valley-wide. Filling the “extra” June flights out of Houston, which begin in early June this summer, will also be a focus for those marketing efforts.

As for summer marketing, Norton says they’ll “layer trail running on top of our mountain bike efforts and we expect the mountain bike market to get more and not less competitive.”

When asked about a general frustration with some locals on marketing the slower shoulder seasons, Norton noted that TAPP’s aim is to serve the lodging community with their marketing efforts. “I haven’t had a conversation with any lodge operator who complains of too much business on an annual basis, but I have spoken with more than a few who speak of the struggles with financial sustainability,” he concluded.