TAPP will begin winter marketing campaign early this year

Focusing less on drive market and tourism

By Katherine Nettles

The Gunnison County Tourism and Prosperity Project (TAPP) gave an update to Gunnison County commissioners this week, emphasizing their success in “non-snow” marketing and plans to begin their winter marketing campaign early this year. 

The Local Marketing District (LMD) tallied a total collection of $3.8 million in 2024, and in 2025, an unexpected $300,000 “bump” in January from a lodge that paid their taxes late in one lump sum skewed the collections for 2025. TAPP leaders say they are preparing their budget based on 2025 staying flat with 2024, although if collections continue on their current trajectory they may come out to around $4.1 million.

“We have a lot of programs that rely on stability over time, so we don’t want to expand or contract over every little change,” said TAPP executive director Andrew Sandstrom. The plan is to budget conservatively for 2026 and reduce their request of LMD funds while expanding their winter marketing to support more of a fly market and offset last winter’s downturn.

Sandstrom said that during the organization’s recent strategic goals retreat, they reflected that their role in the community is to support the flow of money from the outside world into the valley and then its recirculation locally. They also identified a problem that costs of living have outpaced local economic opportunities and wages, which underscored the need for economic diversification beyond tourism.

“Our mission is to leverage LMD and grant money to develop and maintain a robust and diversified Gunnison County economy,” said Sandstrom. “So to a large degree we’re stewards of the economy and working to grow incomes in the valley.” Sandstrom described three ways money does flow into the valley: through tourism, through Western Colorado University (Western) and through second homeowners, retirees and remote workers. He said the latter group has not been focused on as much, but they bring significant funds to the valley, “and they are driven by many of the same amenity drivers that tourists are.”

To better quantify different economic sectors, TAPP is working to create an economic model for the county going as far back as 2001 and expects this to be complete by early 2026. 

According to a state study, visitor spending accounted for $372.5 million in Gunnison County and 2,600 jobs in 2024 (up 5.4% from 2023). Sandstrom noted that the Red Lady Study of 2014 showed that the economic impact of second homeowners, remote workers and retirees outpaced tourism spending. He said that study is getting a bit dated, and the economic modeling project should help give more accurate and up-to-date insight on all sectors and trends. 

He said TAPP’s strategic focus is still tourism, particularly through its marketing campaigns, and in diversifying the economy through exports and Western.

“Diversifying our economic drivers will wean our reliance on tourism, stabilizing our economy and growing wages,” said Sandstrom.

Marketing shoulder seasons and winter

TAPP’s marketing director Katy Mooney reviewed the past two seasons of marketing for the county, which were spring and summer, and tactics for winter marketing which officially kicks off next week. She said branding for the Gunnison Valley remains centered on its “natural capital and lifestyle” for both summer and winter.

She said “non-snow” marketing campaigns, which kicked off in April and wraps up this week, seem to be paying off, especially with gravel bikers. May and June visitation was up for the county 20% from 2024, with visitor growth concentrated in the South Valley. 

“Meta, Google Search and YouTube were top performers, but gravel bikers are hard to target,” said Mooney. “We finally found them this year. They are on Reddit.” She said it was good to connect with that audience, and Sandstrom added that Reddit advertising is almost an “advertorial kind of thing.”

During July and August visitors stayed longer and spent more, with visitor numbers flat for the South Valley and dropping slightly in the North Valley but with longer stays and more money spent.

Gunnison-Crested Butte Airport (GUC) flights had a 73% load factor on a 63% capacity increase from last year.

Mooney said TAPP also worked this summer on growing their content creation and brand partnerships, including people like Lukas Mann, a professional trail runner who participated in the summer Grand Traverse and is sponsored by Garmin. 

Last, summer marketing included an expensive awareness campaign encouraging people who wanted to camp in the valley to have a plan B and preferably, a hotel room booked. 

“We had good engagement with people clicking through to lodging websites and searching dates,” said Mooney. Sandstrom said it’s not possible to learn if they followed through with bookings, but if the data becomes available to track the bookings, they will welcome it.

September and October lodging rates are up 8% over last year, and occupancy is down 7% but length of stay is up 5% and flight bookings are strong.

Mooney said this is encouraging because there have been double digit drops in visitation at other resorts, particularly where they rely heavily on international markets.

One threat she identified was Utah. “Utah has been taking Colorado’s market share for a few years now,” she said.

Mooney also described why TAPP wants to move away from relying on the drive market for winter visitors. She said the drive market is fickle, books last-minute, doesn’t stay as long, doesn’t spend as much and relies on snow. Meanwhile, visitors who fly spend more, have less impact on the land by staying at the resort and don’t seem to care as much about snow conditions. TAPP has ads launching this week (one month earlier than usual) to capture those early bookings and to line up with Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass marketing and ski industry product launches.

Beyond tourism

Sandstrom also mentioned Western partnerships with Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory for grant funding, donors and a student-led data management project.

ICELab director David Assad reviewed that TAPP’s business incubator/accelerator program has interfaced with more than 40 companies in the valley from 2019 to 2024 and the companies have created more than 70 jobs—40 of which are more than $60,000 per year. He added that companies have reported $7.8 million in revenue increase.

“The ICELab has also placed more than 40 students or graduates in internships and careers in the valley,” he reported. He said there have been five ICELab programs developed for entrepreneurs of the valley.

County commissioner chair Laura Puckett Daniels asked for more context to those numbers, including the baseline data. “Those numbers sound great, but without knowing how much they started with, it is less meaningful,” she said. Asaad said he would provide that baseline data.

The ICELab is also creating a new space on North Main Street in Gunnison next to Natural Grocers, calling it “The Hub.” Construction started about two months ago and should be complete by the end of the year, said Assad. It will have offices, warehouse space, light industrial space and has four signed tenants so far.