VisitAurora presents three‑year plan as council members raise concerns about $2 nightly fee and hotel promotion

VisitAurora President and CEO Bruce Dalton presented the organization’s three‑year strategic plan to the Aurora City Planning and Economic Development Policy Committee, saying the plan focuses on increasing overnight stays, supporting product development such as festivals and hotels, expanding destination awareness and aligning tourism strategy with citywide economic development goals.

Dalton said VisitAurora’s work responds to a recent downturn in business travel: “The first quarter of 2025, the lodgers tax collection in the city of Aurora were down 17% from the first quarter of 2024,” Dalton said, and added the destination marketing fee collections for the first quarter were about $66,000 below VisitAurora’s 2025 budget projection.

Why it matters: VisitAurora is the city’s destination marketing organization; changes in lodging tax and the destination marketing fee affect its operating budget and how much the organization spends to promote hotels, festivals and other visitor‑facing activity that generates sales tax and hotel occupancy revenue for Aurora.

Dalton summarized VisitAurora’s plan pillars — sales and marketing, destination alignment, organizational strength and destination management — and listed recent work such as the 2024 Aurora Borealis Festival, neighborhood guides and the visitors guide. He said the organization is pursuing leisure marketing, cooperative marketing with tourism businesses and sports‑event recruitment, and is working on cultural tourism and a visitor experience grant program.

Committee members pressed Dalton on how VisitAurora markets the city and how it spends public funds. Council member Jurinski criticized what he described as an imbalance between VisitAurora’s revenue and its visible returns, citing the $2 destination marketing fee collected per room night. Jurinski said a growing group of Aurora hotel owners believe the $2 nightly fee has contributed to a loss of business to Denver and other neighboring cities and questioned VisitAurora’s overhead and personnel costs. “We give the Aurora Chamber about $75,000 a year. We give the AEDC about $500,000 a year. ... you get roughly 4 to $5,000,000 from us a year,” Jurinski said.

Council member Sundberg and others pushed back on aspects of Jurinski’s critique. Sundberg called sports tourism “such a beneficial thing to our city” and said long‑running sporting events have delivered measurable economic benefits. Dalton offered to meet with Jurinski and hotel owners to walk through VisitAurora’s finances and strategy, and he said his compensation is comparable to similar destination organizations.

Committee members also asked Dalton for more detail on VisitAurora’s role in bringing sporting events to Aurora and whether some events predated the organization. Dalton said VisitAurora works with event organizers primarily on hotel room blocks and destination promotion and that some long‑running events had existed locally for decades and were not created by VisitAurora.

Dalton noted VisitAurora’s recent rebranding and the launch of tools such as neighborhood videos, the Aurora Borealis Festival and the Cheers Aurora brewery tour. He said VisitAurora is exploring alternative funding streams and is pursuing a grant with the Colorado Tourism Office for cultural tourism research and development.

The committee did not take a formal vote on VisitAurora’s budget or fees during the meeting; Dalton said he would meet with council members and stakeholders to answer more detailed questions.

Dalton: “I am proud of what we've accomplished and what we've done in the city, and I know that a lot of people throughout the city, are as well.”

Looking ahead: Council members asked for additional financial detail and follow‑up meetings with hotel owners and VisitAurora staff to review the organization’s budget, promotional placement of Aurora and non‑Aurora hotels, and strategies to pursue self‑sustaining revenue for VisitAurora.