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Visit Farmington highlights 2025 gains, tests new markets and promotes Denver flights
Summary
Visit Farmington told the city council it saw modest visitor-growth trends in 2025, launched a flight-focused campaign targeting northern Colorado and will test three new out-of-state markets in 2026; councilors pressed staff on AI, partnerships and event promotion.
Visit Farmington presented a recap of 2025 marketing work and an outline of its 2026 outreach to the Farmington City Council, saying the destination marketing organization contracted by the city saw several gains but also weather-related and national-park disruptions.
"We even have to tell our brains that because sometimes we start talking about '26 and it's like, no, we're relaying 2025," said Tanya Stinson of Visit Farmington, opening the presentation that covered trade shows, advertising channels and the co-located visitor center. Stinson told the council the group ran four travel and trade shows in 2025, including Denver, Phoenix and Dallas, and that convention- and event-focused bids remain an important source of overnight stays.
Ingrid Gilberts of Visit Farmington described a multi-platform ad strategy that included programmatic display, mobile conquesting, social "mirroring," pre-roll video and connected-TV buys. The organization said it experimented in 2025 with messaging tied to daily flights between Denver and Farmington and that the flight-focused creative ran in northern Colorado as part of a push to reach travelers when they are planning and booking trips.
"At the end of the ad it just reminds them with now daily flights from Denver to Farmington," Stinson said, explaining the rationale for the flight campaign and how the messaging was adapted across markets.
Stinson and Gilberts also shared visitor metrics: facility users at the shared visitor-center/museum site rose about 4.7% and Visit Farmington's survey booklets showed shifts in visitor intent—vacation and family visits rose while business travel slipped in the top reasons for visiting. The presenters said 71% of visitors were from out of state and that most visitor spend (about 80%) came from those out-of-area guests. They also reported an average hotel length of stay of about 2.2 days and average short-term rental stays of roughly 4.6 days.
The presentation noted a $177,000 cooperative promotion award through the New Mexico Tourism Department in 2025, with the city paying roughly 33% of that award, and flagged external factors that affected 2025 results: heavy early-June rains limited outdoor visitation, and a fall government shutdown reduced national-park attendance and prompted trip cancellations.
Councilors asked for presentation slides for community outreach and pressed on specifics: whether Visit Farmington has partnerships with Navajo Lake and its marina (Stinson said the marina is a member) and how the organization is using AI and hashtags. Gilberts said the office is tagging website content and using predictive analytics to remain an authoritative source for AI-driven overviews, and recommended simple hashtag strategies and early event promotion for organizers.
Visit Farmington also announced three short test markets for 2026 (Seattle, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City) to evaluate organic interest and said data from those tests will determine longer-term buys. Stinson and Gilberts invited councilors to Visit Farmington's annual meeting next week, where they planned to present a "Story of Farmington" keynote and beta-test an interactive exhibit.
The presentation was informational; no formal council action was requested. The council scheduled follow-up through routine community outreach and communication with Visit Farmington.
