Grand County tourism board wins: commissioners approve first-quarter MOUs and hear Madden Media report

The Board of County Commissioners approved a slate of first-quarter tourism grant MOUs presented by Gaylene Orr of the Grand County Tourism Board. The slate covered 11 awards to local chambers, arts groups and events, including grants to Hot Sulphur Springs ($10,000), Kremmling Chamber ($14,000), Town of Grand Lake ($70,000), Winter Park/Fraser Chamber ($50,000), Destination Granby ($57,400), Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater ($10,500) and the Cowtown Gravel Race (West Grand Recreation Foundation, $10,000). Commissioners asked whether event grants are time-limited and were told the tourism board typically funds events for several years and encourages grantees to become self-sustaining.

Following the vote, Madden Media (presenters introduced by the tourism director) provided an annual campaign review. Madden reported roughly $230,000 in spend during the first full year of the contract, producing about 26 million impressions, an estimated 8,000 attributable room nights and measurable visitor spending in the millions. Conversion buys with Expedia and Epsilon were highlighted: Madden reported a strong return on ad spend in tracked buys (Expedia ~1.49:1 in the presented slide set; Epsilon reporting moved from near 9:1 to 15:1 in their most complete report). The agency also described the recently launched tourism website and an AI-powered itinerary tool (MindTrip) that creates user itineraries from vetted site content to shorten trip planning and improve conversion.

Commissioners asked for follow-up on month-over-month visitor-day changes and for more local examples of where visitor spending is captured; Madden said staff can return with granular month and town-level data. The board voted to approve the MOUs as recommended.