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Grand County Tourism Council reports great year so far

Courtesy of Grand County Tourism Council

The Grand County Colorado Tourism Board (GCCTB) is reporting continued success in 2015 across marketing, sales and public relations and is confident in the building momentum heading toward the year’s end, according to a statement released by the agency.

“Grand County has had a great year when it comes to marketing, website and lodging numbers,” the statement says. “2015 started out strong and reached record-breaking levels for lodging and website visits throughout the summer season.

“2014 was the best year on record for website visits, but to-date web visits in 2015 have already had a 50 percent increase over last year,” it continues. “Consumer engagement with the website improves consistently proving people are interested in consuming Grand County content as they make plans to visit.”



Marketing & Advertising

GCCTB continues to work with Signature Advertising to promote the county via digital and print advertisements that direct users to the website visitgrandcounty.com and to download the mobile app. Additionally, the advertising agency has continued creating and placing advertisements in Colorado and destination markets, as well as producing eight summer videos, conducting a summer photo shoot, deploying multiple emails to the county’s target markets and reprinting the countywide map brochure.



Karen Ruby, principal for Signature in Denver, says requests help keep online information as up-to-date and accurate as possible.

“We want to maintain consumer confidence with a reliable website,” she says and asks folks to review visitgrandcounty.com and the mobile app to make sure companies are listed with current and correct information. Updates and changes can be emailed to Nancy Wiles at nancy@signature-ad.com.

Sales

August marked a celebration commemorating the launch of a cooperative effort to promote three scenic byways and a national heritage area. Dede Fay of Walden Hollow Enterprises reported a well-attended ceremonial ribbon cutting on Aug. 25 at the western entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Local history expert Dave Naples did the honors as “Teddy Roosevelt” at the ribbon cutting as and gave a short speech on the legacy of national parks and the loop tour. The Vintage Time Traveler Model T Club was also on hand for the ribbon cutting as they made their way on a 4,820-mile tour to re-create the original National Park-to-Park Highway auto tour of 1920.

The loop tour takes visitors through diverse scenery and communities such as Grand Lake, Granby, Hot Sulphur Springs, Kremmling, Estes Park, Fort Collins and Walden. In 2014 GCCTB collaborated with eight partners to create a map brochure and web page encouraging visitors to explore this unique part of north central Colorado.

Public Relations

Gaylene Ore of Ore Communications, GCCTB’s public relations company, reported advertising equivalency at an all-time year-to-date high of $1.5 million. Highlighted story placement on Grand County appeared in The Washington Post, Yahoo Travel, Fox News, Smithsonian, KXPS Sports Radio, and the Denver Post.

Ore Communications met with key media in New York last April, including Travel & Leisure, Weddings and Honeymoons and Frommer’s Budget Travel. Additionally, 27 journalists were hosted in Grand County, including those from 5280 Magazine, American Road Hog, Coastal Newspapers, Fox TV, Tampa Tribune, Insight Magazine and KXPS Sports Radio.

In 2016, public relations will extend its reach and add desk-side meetings to Seattle, Portland, Ore., Dallas, Houston and Austin, Texas.

Aside from the production of the 2016 media plan, the next big project is the new GCCTB website. The site will be redesigned, reorganized and rebuilt to be responsive and automatically scale the site’s size based on the device being used to view it. With goals to launch the new site in the spring, GCCTB and Signature Advertising are currently working to improve the content from the current site for a smooth transition when it is imported into the new site.


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