Say goodbye to Colorado Springs' lock on summer tourists

Colorado Springs Business Journal, Oct 26, 2007 by Amy Gillentine

While some of Colorado's ski resorts spend the summer months making improvements to the slopes and waiting for winter, most of them are open year-round -- heating up the competition for summer dollars.

Until recently, the Springs owned the warm weather months, sharing only with Glenwood Springs, Estes Park and Denver.

"When I got here, summer tourism was for the Springs," said Terry Sullivan, executive director of Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak, the city's visitor and convention bureau. "Now, investors in the ski resorts realize that their investment can draw tourists in the summertime as well."

Resort towns such as Vail and ski areas like Keystone are drawing visitors with signature summer events. And in Vail, the decision to market for the summer season brought with it a lodging tax specifically for those marketing efforts.

"Vail's town council and business owners decided that it was hard to have an off-season," said Jens Werner of Peeple's Inc, the public relations firm hired to market the village. "We know that we're an established winter destination, so they decided to become an attractive summer destination as well."

Vail passed the tax and hired an event planner, a public relations firm and an advertising agency to attract tourists for the summer season. And Werner said that it is working: tourists from New York, Atlanta, Dallas and the Front Range have made Vail's summer events a huge success.

"Essentially, it's that lodging tax that funds the marketing efforts," Werner said. "From our standpoint, it's been very successful."

Vail has several summer events: an outdoors competition that includes mountain biking, fly fishing, trail running -- "anything without a motor" -- and Bravo, a music festival that brings in the New York Philharmonic to town every summer.

"We decided to focus on the markets where people who can come to Vail, will come to Vail -- and we target our public relations efforts on those markets," Werner said. "And the seasons are getting shorter. The summer room rates aren't at winter prices, but the lodging community can get more money thanks to the summer economic base."

Other ski resorts have focused on year-round tourism for some time. Keystone Resort has one of the largest conference centers in Colorado, and depends on business travelers for a large part of its summer and "shoulder" -- fall and spring -- customers.

"We expanded in 2000, so it's been a big revenue source for us," said Amy Kemp, public relations director for the resort. "If you look at the calendar for summer events in the mountains, there are more activities, events and attractions. Just more people are interested in coming here, and realize the area is a spectacular place."

Keystone also puts its ski lifts to good use during the summer, offering a lift for bikers who then take the extreme ride down the mountain.

"We've been investing heavily in that segment for the first three or four years," Kemp said. "And we've seen demand respond with more travelers and more festivals. Tourism throughout Summit County has been strong in the summer months."

And more people are visiting to see the fall foliage, she said.

"We don't see the kind of tourists that New England sees in the fall," Kemp said, "but word is getting out -- and the tourists are coming."

Most ski resorts don't have to market during the winter, Sullivan said. Instead, they let the weather report do the marketing -- ski reservations typically go up when snow is reported in the Rockies.

"So they can spend 60 to 65 percent of their marketing budget marketing for the summer," he said. "You can go to Breckenridge in the summer and see a clogged Main Street. That's not an advantage that Colorado Springs has."

Colorado Springs doesn't have a lodging tax specifically for marketing, but Sullivan said partnerships with area organizations allow him to spend money more effectively. The organization has a budget of $3.5 million, with about $1 million for marketing and advertising.

Experience Colorado Springs partners with Pikes Peak Country Attractions to offer discounts to regional tourist spots.

"That partnership allows us to maintain some of the market share," Sullivan said. "But some of the traditional tourists that used to stay in the Springs just drive right through -- headed for the mountains."

Sullivan said the city's growth has hurt the tourism market -- more people means more road construction, more detours, more traffic.

"And all that tends to drive tourists to other, quieter, more peaceful areas," he said. "We've definitely seen a shift in the overall demographic of the visitor."

Colorado Springs has more group activity and more business and convention activity than families coming to the city, he said.

"That keeps our head above the water line," he said. "And we've also used the Web site to aggressively market the city. We were the first city in Colorado to use a Web site, and we continue to use it aggressively to bring business to the city. It's been a marvelous asset."

Colorado Springs also competes worldwide for tourists, he said. The days when the Springs had a lock on the summer tourism dollar are at an end.