Chamber presents 2025 results and 2026 plan; warns lodging-grant changes may shift funding

The Winter Park ' Fraser Chamber delivered its 2025 annual report to the Fraser Board on April 1, highlighting membership, marketing metrics and a plan to expand research and advertising for 2026.

The chamber representative said membership counts stood at roughly 440 active members and reported an estimated $5.5 million in direct economic impact from 2025 events, based on post-event surveys of attendee spending. The chamber's overall 2025 revenue was presented at about $2.7 million, with marketing and events budgets called out as the largest line items: advertising and digital marketing partnerships accounts for a significant portion of the marketing spend and the events budget was shown as about $1.1 million for 2026 planning.

On funding, the presenter noted that county tourism grants and lodging-tax distributions have shifted recently; the chamber received a $100,000 county grant in prior years but that program-level grant has been reduced, a point that the presenter said trustees should consider if Fraser pursues home-rule lodging-tax collection. "We don't wanna meet them. We wanna beat them," the chamber representative said of the chamber's marketing targets for the coming year.

Trustees asked for additional breakdowns on how much of the town's financial support goes to free events vs. paid-ticket events and asked staff to follow up with the chamber on a more detailed itemization of event and advertising expenses. The chamber offered to provide the board with follow-up materials and to participate in future budget conversations, noting partnerships with the town, Winter Park Resort and Miles Partnership (the advertising vendor) are central to the chamber's strategy.

Next steps: Chamber staff agreed to share the full report and more detailed breakdowns of event and marketing expenditures with trustees for budget planning.