TAPP starts the year strong, but expects second half to be flat
By Katherine Nettles
In an interim report presented to Gunnison County commissioners last week, representatives from the Gunnison Valley Tourism Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) noted that based on an overview of commercial lodging occupancy rates and short-term rental availability, local tourism is off to a strong start for 2024, but summer and fall visitor numbers have remained roughly flat so far.
TAPP’s areas of growth and success include summer airline schedules and reservations, environmental stewardship efforts, collaboration with Western Colorado University (WCU) and Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), and economic development.
First, TAPP Executive Director John Norton reviewed tourism in the valley from the perspective of lodging, marketing and air bookings. Norton explained that after a recovery in the third and fourth quarters, 2023 is seeing a slight 1% decrease in Local Marketing District (LMD) revenues, which are the source of funding for TAPP’s various programs, compared to 2022.
sightseeing
After a slow start to the 2023/2024 ski season, snow and terrain opened up at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) late in the season, which coincided with an increase in LMD collections, which increased 13% overall for the winter season.
“The increase in tax revenues coincides with increases in the number of passengers using the airport, organic and paid traffic to gunnisoncrestedbutte.com, and lodging search volumes,” said the TAPP report, included in the committee’s meeting materials. The report also highlighted that winter aviation has been a “great success,” with increases in both capacity and passenger numbers.
Gunnison-Crested Butte Airport carried more passengers last winter than it had in decades, and new satellite-based flight management techniques helped the airport achieve a flight completion rate of more than 98 percent, according to data.
“This reliability builds confidence with both visiting and local customers who depend on flights. Despite strong bookings, RTA has had to pay Houston’s Minimum Revenue Guarantee (MRG) in full. [United] Flight costs. (paid $521,954).
The report attributes this to falling airfares and rising flight operating costs.
During the summer, Norton said, TAPP continues to focus on recreational trails and access to public lands, specifically increasing its marketing efforts to highlight the valley’s gravel cycling opportunities. “Gravel has been going really well so far,” he said, noting that there are more than 580 miles of established gravel cycling routes in the valley, and TAPP has expanded its campaign to make up 20 percent of its non-snow-related marketing budget.
County Commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels praised the efforts of TAPP and bikepacking.com in building mutually beneficial marketing content and website links.
Andrew Sundstrom, marketing director for TAPP, said summer and fall travel bookings in the valley are trending flat compared to last year. But he also said the various metrics used to forecast summer trends are sending out mixed signals. Lodging searches were up 77% as of April and May, but airline capacity is flat and airline bookings are up slightly from last year. TAPP’s website performance shows strong “organic” or unpaid web traffic, while paid traffic is off to a slow start. Tracking data based on commercial lodging and Mount Crested Butte accommodations shows occupancy is down 3%, while other data looking at Airbnb and VRBO availability shows occupancy up 5%.
Sandstrom said each data set has predictive strengths and challenges. “Making assumptions between these two reports, we see a roughly flat pacing from last summer,” his report concluded.
“It’s notable that airlines are being pretty bullish on Gunnison County,” Sandstrom said, noting that United Airlines has seen a slight increase in bookings and that smaller airline JSX is adding capacity from Texas through July and August. United also launched a second daily flight between GUC and Denver through the fall. “It’s clear that airlines are seeing opportunity here in the valley,” Sandstrom said.
Filling those flights will help ensure future flights for both tourists and locals who need to fly for work, he said. “So we’re [marketing] The funds to sell these flights in the fall are drying up.”
Norton acknowledged that the closure of the Highway 50 Middle Bridge at Blue Mesa Reservoir will disproportionately impact drive-thru traffic and overnight guests in Gunnison compared to Crested Butte. County Commission Chairman Jonathan Hauck agreed that while many businesses in Gunnison and nearby areas rely on drive-thru traffic, “our visitors are still largely Front Range residents, either second homeowners or people coming into the drive-thru market from Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Based on current road conditions, all of these people have unimpeded access to the valley.”
sustainability
TAPP’s updates also highlight its environmental efforts, including “Doo” Right Colorado outdoor restroom kits and information campaign made by Gunnison Valley-based PACT. The Colorado Tourism Office has funded the campaign for the second year in a row, and Sandstrom said the campaign “touches every part of our mission,” including having the Gunnison-Crested Butte logo on the kits, skyrocketing website traffic and significant media attention. “It also promotes us as a destination that values the outdoors and draws the right type of visitors here.”
TAPP is overseeing an advertising/messaging campaign targeted at Gunnison Valley residents during the busiest six weeks of summer based on sustainable recreation principles. TAPP is investing $5,000 into the campaign and has committed an additional $3,000 to additional law enforcement on public lands and awareness and education efforts for trail users.
Collaboration with WCU and RMBL
Jenifer Blacklock, director of WCU’s Rady School of Engineering, reflected on TAPP’s partnership with WCU in Blister Labs and the Outdoor Industrial Engineering (OIE) in Graduate Program: This summer, 15 undergraduate students are working with Blister Labs on four different OIE-focused projects: mountain bike wheel testing, ski and ski boot flex testing, technical fabric testing, and EV bike battery efficiency testing.
“We already have test systems in place for mountain bike wheels, skis and technical fabrics,” she said. Those three systems are due to be completed this summer, but the bike battery testing technology is still in the early stages of design.
Blacklock said the Rady OIE Post-Bax program gives recent engineering graduates who want to stay in the Valley a paid opportunity to work on local projects for an additional year, building the framework for a long-term job.
“They can work at a startup, they can start a company, they can work with the people that we partner with in Silicon Valley, collaborate on the technology side and take it to market,” she said, explaining the opportunities in the program. This summer, two graduates will begin one-year contracts.
“There’s a lot of potential in this model and I’m excited to see where it goes,” she said.
TAPP also supports a summer research program with Rady faculty and undergraduate students on RMBL-related projects that will continue through the 2024/2025 academic year.
These projects include machine learning and snow classification, developing sensors to measure land surface data (e.g. radiation, soil temperature, energy dynamics), plant leaf area imaging to measure water and carbon movement, measuring animal weight and snow accumulation to inform land management decisions, estimating snow cover onset and duration, and more.
RMBL Executive Director Ian Billick said the TAPP funding ($25,000 per quarter in 2024) has allowed RMBL to shift personnel and resources to increase personnel hours and focus more on science and securing additional funding. “They’re really creating an opportunity to bring in research from around the world,” Billick said, specifically talking about climate research and related work.
Economic development
While many of TAPP’s collaborations and campaigns have an economic development aspect, the ICELab Business Resource Center is solely focused on creating more high-paying jobs in Gunnison County and supporting entrepreneurs in the valley. ICELab Acting Director TJ Taylor called the cumulative job opportunity gains from 2019 to 2023 “significant” as the cost of living continues to rise and more high-paying jobs are sought. He reported that in 2023, four businesses will be attracted to the county, creating 62 jobs, with 34 of those jobs paying between $50,000 and $60,000 or more.
Commissioner Puckett Daniels asked ICELab to review how it measures “high-paying jobs” to reflect current statistics, noting that the recently released 2024 Area Median Income (AMI) chart reflects roughly 20% income growth over the past two years.
“Right now, a single-person household earning about $55,000 to $60,000 a year is actually about 80% of the AMI, or below the average. In 2019, $55,000 a year was a high-paying job, but now it’s below the average,” she said. “As we look to the future and what our goals are, we need to change those metrics.”
Taylor agreed, saying he plans to set that benchmark above $60,000 over the next few years.
TAPP’s update also included the organization’s financials, which show it is largely on track to stay within budget. Marketing accounts for the largest portion of budgeted expenditures at 52%, followed by ICELab at 17% and collaboration with WCU at 6% of the total budget. From January through April, TAPP’s revenue from LMD was $1.1 million, with expenses totaling $886,000 for that period.
