HomeMy WebLinkAbout01. VLMDAC November Meeting MinutesVail Local Marketing District Advisory Council
Joint Meeting with Commission on Special Events
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Antlers Lodge
8:30-10:30am
Packet Link: http://bit.ly/2yK09jM
VLMDAC Members Present:
Phil Metz (Vail Resorts)
Laurie Mullen (West Vail Liquor)
Jenn Bruno (Vail Town Council)
Jessie Klehfoth (VRD)
Beth Slifer (Slifer Designs)
John Dawsey (CME)
Scott Gubrud (Four Seasons)
Michael Holton (Vail Health)
Skip Thurnauer
Also Present:
Ernest Saeger (Town of Vail)
Carlie Smith (Town of Vail)
Yann Benjamin (Vail Resorts)
David Neff (Vail Resorts)
Hannah Eflin (Vail Resorts)
Clare Hefferren (Callosum/Doubletree)
Kristin Yantis (MYPR)
Emily Tracy (MYPR)
Chris Romer (VVP)
Anna Robinson (VVP)
Laura Waniuk (TOV)
Meggen Kirkham (SITE)
Hannah Green (Cactus)
Katie Harker (Cactus)
Chris Kramer (Bridge Street Ski Haus)
Alison Wadey (VCBA & CSE)
Rayla Kundolf (CSE)
Barry Davis (CSE)
Mark Gordon (CSE)
Samantha Biszantz (CSE)
Satchele Burns (Deadline Motion)
Carly West (Bravo! Vail)
AGENDA
- 8:30am - October 2017 Monthly Financial Report, (5 minutes), Carlie Smith
Carlie – revenues up to 2.6m, 79% of budget / expenses at 3.2m, 86% of budget. Fund balance
$837k.
- 8:35am - Approval of October 19, 2017 Meeting Minutes, (5 minutes)
Motion/Second/Passed (Skip Thurnauer/John Dawsey/Unanimous)
- 8:40am - CSE Allocations for 2018, (15 minutes), Commission on Special Events
Review of 2017 successes -$28.74 payback ratio per funding dollar, board, programming NPS. See
slides for details. Review of 2018 newly funded events - lacrosse, hockey tournament (both fell over
need weekends), Vail Cup Series, Legacy Fighting Alliance (also on a need weekend) and TedX Vail.
LFA warranted the most discussion of all events. Discussion RE: audience, media, future funding,
Front Range draw, etc)
Review of 2018 strategies - review existing events, encourage evolution of current successful events,
address areas of improvement, be mindful of attendance volume, continue to fund independent 3rd
party surveys. See slides for details. Discussion RE: how are producers being incentivized to fill need
weekends & mid-week? Constant discussion with producers. Discussion RE: Are there any other
destinations that are doing this well? Vail is doing it best on a year-round basis. Discussion RE:
Expansion of Taste of Vail brand.
- 8:55am - Summer & Fall Results 2017, (80 minutes), Partners
Results vs Goals (TOV): Review of sales tax results. May – September are all up slightly. October
TBD. Occupancy is flat. Group occupancy flat. Visitor mix: 53% out of state, 5% international, 29% in
state. See slides for details. Discussion RE: group vs. leisure. Discussion RE: how does our occupancy
compare to other western resorts? Across the west, it is flat. Chris Romer will share industry-wide
report with the group. Can be shared monthly if needed. Discussion RE: Normalization to account
for Talisa being out of inventory? All Destimetrics data is normalized.
Group Sales Recap (VVP): Group sales are strong and up YOY. VVP goals are awareness,
consideration and lead generation – individual properties close the deals. Talisa opens November
30th. Several large scale renovations coming up that will take some things out of inventory. More to
come. Future Business Leaders of America has outgrown Vail after 25+ years. Starting in 2019 they
are moving to the Gaylord in Aurora. Review of successes & opportunities & review of key metrics -
see slides for details. Discussion RE: is there anything out of the ordinary? There are more groups on
the books for 3-4 years out, which is unusual because the cycle is usually 2 years. Long term business
is usually national association business. Discussion RE: Can this data be broken out into one year
increments? Yes – will be broken out moving forward. Review of CVENT data - see slides for details.
Group vs. Leisure comparison - see slides for details. VVP will report YOY comparison once
September & October are entered. Discussion RE: Can we see data for other destinations? Is there
an optimal mix? Discussion RE: the properties that are not included (like STRs and smaller,
independent properties) tend to skew leisure. Discussion RE: increasing group means increasing
mid-week business. IPW is coming to Denver, VVP will host pre & post FAM tours. Discussion RE:
Denver’s bid for Amazon – there are statewide efforts, but are being kept under wraps for the time
being.
Digital Media Insights (Cactus): Review of year end stats: 48.4M impressions, 18M video views,
226k clicks. All results exceeded YOY benchmarks. Review of incremental fall spend results. See
slides for details. Discussion RE: Pandora campaign results - very strong. Digital Recommendations:
what to continue, stop and try. See slides for details. Facebook to drive traffic, Instagram will be
used for awareness.
Digital Brand, Event & Retail Insights (Cactus): Review of highest & lowest performing banner ads.
Recommendations RE: what to continue, stop and try. See slides for details. Review of event digital
messaging – food & drink events were by far the highest performing. Adventure events were second
highest. Cultural results - Vail Jazz (strong VCR) & Dance Festival (destination). Recommendations
RE: what to continue, stop & try. See slides for details. Discussion RE: are we using enough
personas? Should we further segment them based on behaviors? Discussion RE: data differences
between winter & summer. Opportunity will come from separating first time vs. return guests in
each persona. Retail insights: end dates drive urgency, midweek offers work on super boomers not
families. Small rate changes are not incentivizing action. Review of offers. See slides for details.
Recommendations RE: continue, stop & try.
Web, Content Marketing & Email Campaigns (Vail Resorts): Review of web results and blog - web is
down some but not concerning. There were some issues with tracking that may have affected data.
New responsive website should fix the problem. May also be attributed to big early season push of
Epic Discovery last summer. Review of milestones and upcoming developments - see slides for
details. Discussion RE: filters on lodging site - why is quality rating not included? LQA was removed
in favor of Trip Advisor Rating. Email campaign results: mostly flat, biggest shift is list size and
dynamic messaging. Social Results - very strong across the board. There is no YOY data for Instagram
and Twitter. Facebook YOY was very strong because of the addition of Brand Content Contributor
(Dave Neff) by Vail Resorts Marketing team. Will step back from Twitter - declining platform.
Discussion RE: vertically oriented videos performed the strongest across all content. Discussion RE:
town content. Events and village ambiance and free activities were main categories. Would like
some testing & results on that content. Review of successes & opportunities. See slides for details.
Summer Influencer Program (MYPR): Review of key stats from 10 influencers over summer season.
See slides for details. These stats will serve as benchmarks moving forward. Review of stats broken
down by each influencer. See slides for details. Review of community partners that were highlighted
by influencers. Review of sample posts. See slides for details. Discussion RE: the challenge of the
evolution of the relationship between social and traditional media.
PR (MYPR): Review of results vs. comp set. Vail performs extremely strong early. Vail and Aspen
tend to have the most diverse messaging. Park City has stepped up coverage, but with a “cheap”
message. Aspen had some negative press this summer, mostly due to factors out of their control.
Epic Discovery in Breckinridge did not garner too much PR. The Vail community continues to be very
PR savvy. Review of qualitative results - see slides for details. Review of media hosted. Review of
successes & adjustments- see slides for details. Lodging partners continue to be flexible with media
visits, but activity partners are being less cooperative. Discussion RE: being more deliberate with the
stories we want influencers to tell.
Traditional Media (SITE): Review of spend and result statistics - saw large impression increase. See
slides for details. Review of insights – see slides for details. Stats broken out by Destination vs Front
Range. Destination results broken down by personas. Overview of addressable TV in destination
markets - all KPIs were achieved. Overview of addressable TV in Front Range - achieved all KPIs.
Breakdown for addressable TV in destination markets & Front Range by persona. All KPIs achieved.
Review of Front Range print (Denver Post, 5280). Print was nice, but won’t affect us if dropped.
Don’t need brand awareness in front range, other than OOH.
- 10:15am - Discuss Next Steps for 2018 Tactics, (10 minutes), All
Next steps - tactical partner meeting on December 7th & week of January 8th. Tactical with VLMDAC
on January 18th. Discussion RE: expanding personas since we have done so well? Should we
segment further than just first time vs. repeat visitors? Fall should be included in initial planning.
Messaging the right personas for mid-week visitation. To be discussed further at Executive Session
following today’s public meeting.
- 10:25am - Other Business (5 minutes)
Jessie Klehfoth - thank you everyone for supporting VRD during their mill levy initiative!
- 10:30am – Adjournment
Motion/Second (Scott Gubrud/John Dawsey)
- Upcoming Meetings:
o CANCELED - VLMDAC Meeting, December 21, 2017