Kristen Keltz, chief executive officer of the Skagit Tourism Bureau, told the Sedro‑Woolley City Council during its April study session that the countywide bureau has completed a year of branding, launched a new website and set up a sports commission aimed at attracting tournaments and overnight stays.

Keltz said the bureau, funded mainly by a tourism promotion area fee collected at hotels, reported about 13,800,000 ad impressions, 450,000 emails sent, roughly 14,000 room nights generated and approximately $3,600,000 in conservatively tracked visitor spending from a recent attribution campaign. She said the bureau leveraged a $2.2 million cooperative campaign with the State of Washington Tourism and is increasing use of media-attribution vendors to target marketing dollars.

The presentation mattered, Keltz said, because overnight stays and tourism-generated tax revenue support local jobs and infrastructure. “We are here to attract overnight stays and market the experience that is Skagit Valley,” she told the council, adding that the bureau tries to balance promotion with protection against “overtourism.”

Keltz described governance and funding: the bureau is organized as a 501(c)(6) and operates under a county contract and a Tourism Promotion Area (TPA) agreement that authorizes participating hotels (those with 40 rooms or more) to collect a per‑room nightly fee for marketing. She said the TPA advisory board includes representatives from each community and seven hotel seats that share oversight of the work plan and budget.

Among the bureau’s new initiatives, Keltz highlighted a sports commission formed in January and a hire of a sports development manager, Cody Hurd. She said the sports work aims to package fields, hotels and services in a single “PlayEasy” platform to make Skagit Valley competitive for tournaments. The bureau has secured two weekends for a USA Ultimate tournament in May that it estimates will bring about 2,500 participants the first weekend and about 5,000 the second.

Keltz also previewed a new website launched two weeks earlier with an interactive map, an events calendar and an AI-powered itinerary tool that she said will allow visitors to build custom itineraries and ask 24/7 questions. She asked cities and community groups to upload local events and resources; the bureau plans an extranet so stakeholders can submit content directly.

On funding and grants, Keltz listed recent awards and programs: a $22,000 rural tourism marketing and production grant used to build a photo library, a $25,000 video/content grant, a research/data grant to support sports‑tournament economic impact analysis and a rural tourism support grant from the state for a destination-development consultant. She said the bureau was the only bureau in Washington to receive that state grant.

Council members praised the work and asked detailed questions about tracking and return on ad spend. Keltz described her use of attribution vendors (Epsilon and Datify) and said, “we can actually track when they come into Skagit Valley and spend money on their credit card,” calling the $3,600,000 figure a conservative estimate of measured visitor spend from a roughly $55,000 campaign.

Keltz closed by inviting council members to the bureau’s summit on May 15, when the State of Washington Tourism CEO and the bureau’s research partner will present the annual report and updated visitation data.

The presentation contained no formal council actions; council members asked the bureau to supply city‑level event content for the new site and said staff would follow up on ways to populate Sedro‑Woolley pages and the event calendar.

For more information Keltz provided a contact and noted slides and the full packet are available online.