Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Tourism Marketing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Commission approves marketing tools and familiarization tours to support tourism and data-driven planning
Summary
Grand County approved a Mailchimp newsletter subscription, a $12,000 annual budget for travel-industry familiarization tours, and renewal of Visa Destination Insights data services to support visitor marketing and data analysis.
Grand County's economic development staff sought and won approval for several items aimed at strengthening destination marketing and data capabilities.
The commission approved a one-year Mailchimp subscription at $285 per month ($3,420 annually) for an economic development newsletter after staff committed to verify whether an existing countywide subscription could be used (IT and advisory-board checks were requested). The motion passed unanimously with a caveat to coordinate with county IT and the travel-council advisory board.
The commission also authorized a $12,000-per-year budget for familiarization (FAM) tours to host travel writers, agents and industry buyers. Commissioners asked staff to require mid-year reporting of outcomes and return-on-investment metrics for each FAM tour so operators can see any publicity or leads generated. The motion passed unanimously (one commissioner recused from a particular tour due to a vendor relationship).
Finally, the county renewed the Visa Destination Insights (VDI) data services contract to maintain credit-card based spend and visitor-origin analytics; staff said Symphony-hosted public dashboards will be updated and backfilled, providing historic and current data for planning and marketing. The VDI renewal passed on a unanimous vote.
