Warren County committee approves four marketing contracts, hears concerns about falling occupancy and Canadian cancellations

The Warren County Tourism Committee on Feb. 27 approved four separate marketing contracts covering analytics, distribution of travel guides and a one-year visitor stewardship study, and heard public comment about declining occupancy and cancellations from Canadian visitors.

Heather, tourism staff, told the committee the four resolutions represent separate contracts: two with Elizabeth Grove Marketing (one for the analytics dashboard and one for subscription services), a distribution agreement with "New York Welcomes You" to place travel guides at northeastern events, and a one-year visitor stewardship project with Famous Destinations to produce research and a multi-year stewardship vision for the Lake George area. The committee voted to bring all four resolutions to the floor and approved them.

The contracts were discussed after the committee chair turned the floor over to Heather, who said the dashboard contract (referred to in the meeting as "Road Marketing") consolidates analytics from STR, mobile data and Canadian visitor surveys into a single dashboard and that the subscription services were bid separately to meet purchasing rules. Heather said that when the department put the services out to bid, a U.S. firm declined to bid because it could not meet the county's requirement to export raw data and provide methodology; she said one respondent declined and another Canadian company was responsive to the specifications.

On the stewardship study, Heather described the Famous Destinations project as a targeted, single-year engagement that will include research, discovery, a "secret shopper" component, stakeholder immersion sessions and a plan of action and advocacy materials. She said the secret-shopper work is a small portion of the overall project and is intended to assess the visitor environment — for example, operating hours, whether businesses are open and the overall welcome visitors experience — rather than to produce granular pass/fail reviews of individual employees or businesses. Heather said summaries of the consultant's findings will be shared publicly and that the consultant, Josiah Brown, is expected to present to the committee at its March meeting.

Supervisor questions focused on whether the stewardship work duplicated activities of the local convention bureau and how the secret-shopper method would be used. Heather said she did not believe the work duplicated the bureau's sales-focused activities and described the projects as complementary, with collaboration between the tourism office and the convention bureau on applicable elements.

During the meeting Heather also presented a short internal "sizzle" video showing footage from a recent winter shoot and thanked local businesses and agencies that assisted with locations and logistics, including Garnet Hill, Gore Mountain, CNC Adirondack (snowmobile access), West Mountain and community winter-carnival organizers. Heather credited staff member Casey for coordinating the shoot.

In public comment, Gary Thornquist, general manager of Lake Ridge RV Park on Route 149, thanked the tourism staff for the presentation and urged the committee to consult more widely with local businesses about the region's current climate. Thornquist said occupancy has not kept pace with increases in tourism spending, telling the committee that when the occupancy-tax fund was created about a year earlier it generated roughly $700,000 annually but that the county is now spending about $7,000,000 (his characterization). He said occupancy at some lodging types has fallen below pre-2019 levels and that many operators are raising rates, which he warned could price out long-standing customer segments. Thornquist also reported receiving cancellations from Canadian visitors tied to political concerns and suggested the committee reassess Canadian-market outreach.

The committee approved the minutes of the Jan. 21 meeting (moved by Supervisor Posidos; seconded by Supervisor Connor) and later approved all four marketing contract resolutions after discussion (motion to bring to floor moved by Supervisor Strainer; seconded by Supervisor Turner). The meeting closed after a short public-comment period and a motion to adjourn.