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Home My WebLink About02. VLMDAC Meeting Minutes from 2016-10-20 1 Minutes Vail Local Marketing District Advisory Council Thursday, October 20, 2016, 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM Antlers Lodge VLMDAC Members Present: Skip Thurnauer, Beth Slifer (Slifer Designs; Chair), Michael Holton (Vail Valley Medical Center), Phil Metz (Vail Resorts), Jessie Klehfoth (Vail Recreation District), Jenn Bruno (Vail Town Council), John Dawsey (Colorado Mountain Express; Treasurer) VLMDAC Members Absent: Laurie Mullen (West Vail Liquor Mart; Vice Chair) Also Present: Kelli McDonald (Town of Vail), Meggen Kirkham (Site), Kristin Yantis (MYPR), Melissa Delekta ? (MYPR), Sarah Berkheimer? (Cactus), Erin Smith (Cactus), Katie Harker (Cactus), Satchele Burns, Jill Lammers (Vail Valley Partnership), Chris Romer (Vail Valley Partnership), Jack Affleck, Carlie Smith (Town of Vail), Jesse Froeschle (Vail Cascade), Gabe Shalley (Vail Resorts), Kendyl Severino (Vail Resorts), Duncan Horner (VVF), Mackenzie Abely (Group 970), Hannah Eflin? (Vail Resorts), Ivy Parker (Vail Cascade), Carly West (Bravo! Vail), Tom Boyd (VVF), Chris Cares (RRC), Chris Cremer (Intrawest) I. Swearing in Phil Metz Discussion of term limits. Interviews are scheduled for December 6 for those who need to renew. Applications due November 18. II. September 2016 Monthly Financial Report – Carlie Smith, Town of Vail – See packet for details. a. 2.2 million in revenue for the year. Additional $202,000 collected in August. At 2.4 million, 79% of budgeted revenue. Fund balance of 1 million. III. Approval of September 15, 2016 Meeting Minutes a. Motion to appove – John Dawsey /Seconded –Skip Thurnauer. Passed unanimously. IV. Photo Review – Jack Affleck – See slides for details a. Board received link to e-book covering new material. b. Cactus presented new creative and handed out printed samples. Cactus refreshed some old material and also created new. They are updating the photographic style in general. They are looking to fill in their overall photography library to cover as many events as possible. c. Jack thanked the Board, SITE Marketing and Cactus for allowing him to work in Vail. He handed out print boards to the group and discussed the different types of photos. There is a lot of breadth and depth to each photo and story. 2 d. Jack went through e-book and described each photo. He went after new village imagery like the Solaris fire pits. Also focused on a three- generational message in some photos. Started shooting the season with the GoPro Games. He took new shots at Ford Amphitheater. They were able to capture the beautiful fall colors. e. Meggen thanked Jack for all his hard work. Beth stated we are lucky to have Jack’s talent in Vail and thanked him as well. f. Town of Vail has been working on uploading all creative to one folder. When this is completed, Kelli will send link to Board. V. Media Wrap Up Cactus – See slides for details a. Campaign Objectives – Goal for summer was to promote awareness of activities available within the Town of Vail. Heavy digital presence during summer campaign. Cactus was able to be very nimble throughout the campaign and able to make optimizations quickly. b. McDonald stated there was a weekly status call between Cactus, Town of Vail and Vail Resorts. This enabled the campaign to be nimble and it fostered an ease of collaboration between partners. c. Cactus gave an overview of Display & Video Benchmarks. See slide for details. Dynamic Families were the most engaged with the website. d. Vail Resorts stated summer performance is in-line with winter performance. e. Cactus saw a 14% VCR on Facebook which they stated is exceptional. f. All partners surpassed their benchmarks. Next year Cactus would like to consider investing more with Adara, YuMe and YouTube. g. There is more in-depth information about the Audience Snapshot in the packet. There was highly qualified engaged traffic from Millennials. Next year they recommend moving a few more dollars into static posts on social. h. Key Takeaways – In packets, top messages are outlined by audience and destination. Air messaging and Epic Discovery were the top messages throughout the summer. Every event-focused topic was the best performer. Super Boomers were the most engaged on Facebook. Millennial Achievers were the most engaged on Instagram. VI. Research Results RRC/VVP – See slides for details a. Chris Cares with RRC presented. Town of Vail worked closely with Vail Mountain Research team to provide RRC with as much information as possible before they began. b. RRC has gradually built a considerable database. They tried to design their surveys to compliment what had been done in the past. They have tried to integrate a variety of different data sources. c. Key Takeaways from the Summer 2016 Research i. There was a pattern throughout the summer of parking spilling onto the Frontage Road. ii. Overall message is that it was an extremely strong summer. iii. NPS this summer was 80, down from 84 last summer. There could 3 be a more granular look at the data to know the cities of visitors. iv. An area of opportunity is 1st-time in-state visitors to Vail. This year the percentage of 1st-timers went down slightly. v. Close to a male/female split in terms of respondent demographics. Similar age range as in past years. vi. It is possible to dig deeper into the data to find out more specific information. vii. RRC gave a brief overview of all data and is looking for feedback on how to improve data collection for next year. viii. For NPS, day visitors are an area of weakness. Coloradans typically give a lower NPS. There is a pattern similar to Vail’s NPS happening at other resorts. There is a variation to when the NPS question is asked during the survey – at start or end of survey. ix. Some of the weaker findings from NPS are ‘Overall value of visit to Vail’ and ‘Parking in Vail is adequate and easy.’ x. ‘Overall Value’ scores are a bit higher for 1st-time visitors then repeat visitors. xi. ‘Rest and Relaxation’ and ‘Sightseeing’ were top vacation descriptors. xii. ‘Sightseeing’ and ‘Shopping’ were top activities. xiii. A little over half of those surveyed stated Social Media did not play a role in their decision to visit Vail. xiv. It was an extremely strong summer across the entire state of Colorado for tourism. xv. General theme is that people love Vail, but challenges remain around parking and overall sense of value. “Expensive” and “Parking” were main comments on ratings of satisfaction from destination guests. xvi. RRC concluded by saying this presentation was a brief snapshot of all the data collected. The data collected this summer should be built upon in years to come. There is more granular data available for the vendors and the advisory council. VII. 2017 VLMD September 20, 2016 Meeting Review – All a. The Vail Town Council was pleased with the results. b. The presentations by VLMDAC were excellent. VIII. Summer 2016 Final Results – See slide for details a. What do we do with the 2 different NPS? Post-trip and during trip? i. RRC stated post-visit survey is best way to answer questions, but it has limitations. ii. As a group, Kelli stated there is value in doing both surveys. iii. It might be time to revisit the goals of doing the surveys. b. MYPR spoke to PR results. See MYPR Press Trip Survey Results in VLMDAC October Packet. Next year, MYPR hopes to focus on front-loading the media visits to the start of the summer. Also, would like to focus on August and September coverage to promote Fall business. 2016 KPI was 4 to grow the ‘family’ message. Most of coverage for events is local with the Vail Daily. Lodging partnerships are incredibly important for the PR effort. During the Fall, the PR team focuses on thanking the lodging partners and growing new partnerships. There is a twice-yearly meeting with lodging partners. We need to have a strategic plan on social media engagement. Discussion ensued. c. Vail Marketing Update: Web, Email, Social, SEO. See slide for details. Bookings for Epic Discovery and Lodging comprised the majority of the 76% growth in revenue. Summer Email performance went up 2,000% by volume. There is a lot of opportunity to work with the PR pieces and Vail Resorts will look towards doing this next year. There were really good results in the organic search traffic. The goal is to make this strategy a year-round, collaborative effort. Overall, Vail Resorts is pleased with the performance. They need to take a closer look at the lodging performance. They are pleased with the email progress. Defining ‘success’ for social media efforts should be geared around engagement. SEO should always be an underlying responsibility of vail.com. d. Traditional Media presentation by SITE. See slide for details. e. Groups Sales recap presentation by Vail Valley Partnership. See slide for details. Leads generated YTD are up from last year. There is very strong mid-week growth for groups in May and October. f. International Results presented by Kendyll from Vail Resorts. See slide for details. IX. Other Business a. McDonald will be presenting the budget resolution on November 1, 2016 along with the Finance Department. b. Announcement about Chris Jarnot’s promotion. c. Announcement about Duncan Horner’s job transition from VVF to VPAC. X. Adjournment – Motion to Adjourn – None taken Upcoming Meetings:  VLMD 2017 Budget Resolution, November 1, 2016, time TBD, Town Council Chambers  VLMDAC Meeting, November 17, 2016 8:30-11:30 a.m. Antlers