TAPP pivots on marketing approach for summer

Adjusting to decreased visitation last winter

By Katherine Nettles

As the Gunnison County Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) transitions from spring to summer marketing, it is also making staff transitions and even some marketing adjustments for a changing economic landscape among locals and visitors. 

During a work session update on Tuesday, Gunnison County commissioners heard about the takeaways from winter and spring visitation numbers, local economic trends, staff transitions, summer marketing and ongoing efforts to promote both Western Colorado University (WCU) and Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL).

Outgoing TAPP executive director John Norton described the transitions taking place with his retirement only days away. He reviewed the process by which he informed the TAPP board of directors about seven months ago of his retirement plans, and recommended that marketing director Andrew Sandstrom take on the role from within the organization. After due diligence the board had agreed, and TAPP’s current marketing manager Katy Mooney is now also moving in to fill Sandstrom’s marketing director position. Norton said he has been surrounded with “A-level people” who will do a fine job with TAPP in the future. “I’m happy to be able to oversee a completely no-drama transition…everybody’s happy. There’s no anxiety, no second guessing,” he said.

Commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels thanked Norton for his foresight and for nurturing his team well to be ready to take over.

Sandstrom then reflected on TAPP’s main purpose of bringing economic vitality to the Gunnison Valley, including bringing household income up. He shared a graph indicating that the mean household income in the county has gone down when adjusting for inflation, while rent and home prices have gone up sharply. 

Lower demand for the valley

The data that TAPP collects around visitation shows that since peak visitation of 825,000 visitors to the valley in 2022, it has dropped to about 660,000 visitors last year. Occupancy is also beginning to drop, said Sandstrom, having peaked at 36% on average with July occupancy around the mid 60% mark in 2024.

However, tax collections for the Local Marketing District (LMD), which funds TAPP, have continued to grow except for a slight adjustment in 2022 and 2023 after the record COVID sales tax collections. Much of that has been driven by lodging rate increases, as TAPP staff have been clear about. “A pizza costs more than it used to; a hotel room costs more than it used to,” summarized Sandstrom.

However, he reported that so far in 2025, commercial lodging is bringing prices down a bit to drive up occupancy. “As we look at summer, rates are still up at the moment,” said Sandstrom, partly because the drive market does lead to more last-minute bookings.

“We’ll see how that pans out,” he said.

The breakdown of specific municipalities in the valley shows a variation in LMD revenue in recent years. Revenue has decreased in Crested Butte, likely due to the limits on STRs; revenue has increased in Mt. Crested Butte and stayed flat in Gunnison.

Mooney said winter visitation was down 8%, which she attributed to low snowfall, bad press for Vail Resorts due to the Park City strike and economic and political volatility. She said TAPP had run an ad campaign similar to previous years, marketing to drive and air visitors and to downhill skiers. And while their audience showed interest online, they did not act as often as hoped. Other areas reported steeper drops in visitation, particularly areas more sensitive to the national downturn in international visitors such as Breckenridge and Aspen. 

This spring TAPP promoted the South Valley activities like gravel biking and Hartman Rocks mountain biking. But responding to the winter lack of action, TAPP is changing its ad campaign this summer to show the more straightforward logistics of what a trip to the valley would look like, including the costs, activities and transportation logistics for visitors. The marketing leans into bike trails, hiking trails, gravel roads, public lands and “cool towns.” 

Its sustainable tourism and land/trail stewardship messaging is staying consistent with previous campaigns in various online forms such as social media, email blasts and tourism websites.

“We’re hoping to get people over that hurdle to travel,” said Mooney.

So far, flight bookings are 33% ahead of last summer, which has been a consistent trend despite a drop in the drive market.

Other initiatives

Sandstrom also highlighted the continued innovation at WCU in the Rady School of Engineering and computer science, among others. He said a focus on getting more professors could bring in more students, and more tuition means more money circulating in the community and leads to more innovation. These concepts as well as a partnership with RMBL and work for business development at the ICELab circle back to creating a more prosperous community, he noted, maintaining sustainable tourism but diversifying economic development in other ways beyond tourism.

“There are lot of opportunities for Rady students and even a recruiting tool with computer science students,” he concluded. “There’s a synergy there.”