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Home My WebLink About01. VLMDAC September Meeting PresentationVLMDAC BOARD MEETING SEPTEMBER 21, 2023 Agenda I. MONTHLY FINANCIAL REPORT (5 minutes), Alex Jakubiec, Town of Vail II. MINUTES APPROVAL ●Action Requested of Board III. INFORMATION & DISCUSSION UPDATES ●2024 Operating Plan & Budget Update (5 minutes), Town of Vail ●Project Task Force (5 minutes) Town of Vail and Board ●Summer Post Visit Survey Results (20 minutes), RRC ●Website Performance Report (15 minutes), Miles Partnership ●CRM & Analytics Update (15 minutes), BAAG ●VailBot Demo (15 minutes), BAAG ●Video Presentation & Distribution Plan (15 minutes), Miles ●Town of Vail Updates (5 minutes), Town of Vail ●Other Business ●Adjournment FINANCE UPDATE MINUTES APPROVAL Minutes Approval Action requested of board to approve the August 17 and September 7 minutes. 2024 OPERATING PLAN & BUDGET UPDATE PROJECT TASK FORCE: 2024 CAMPAIGN SUMMER POST VISIT SURVEY RESULTS Methodology The Vail Summer 2023 research is conducted by the Town of Vail and the Vail Local Marketing District (VLMD). It is intended to track information from guests that visited Vail during summer 2023 and that logged into the Discover Vail WiFi site. This report presents data collected through Labor Day, September 4, 2023. Where applicable, comparisons to summer 2022 are shown, with historic dates aligned to current year dates by day of week (i.e., this report compares YTD summer results to 2022 results collected through September 4, 2022). Additionally, selected figures such as NPS, prior visitation, and others are broken out by visitor type. Unless otherwise noted (e.g., exclusion of full-time and seasonal residents), results represent all respondents. *Sample sizes include partial responses. Sample size for individual questions are reported in each figure. Sample Sizes: VISITOR PROFILE Visitor Type Though still a solid majority , the share of overnight visitation has decreased this summer, while shares of all other visitor types have increased. State/Country of Origin The share of in-state visitors has increased this summer and now makes up a third of the sample. Other states remained relatively stable except Florida which dropped from 9% to 5%. *Excludes Full-Time Residents Family Status Shares of “empty nesters” and couples with no children have decreased from last summer, while the share of singles with no children has increased. Household Income The distribution of household income stayed relatively stable this season, apart from a decrease in the share of households making between $50-99K. Age Average age decreased this summer, owed to an increase in the share guests in the 18-34 age bracket. Epic Pass Ownership Nearly a quarter (24%) of this summer’s guests owned an Epic Pass for winter 2022/23. Epic Pass ownership was least prominent among overnight visitors (13%). Travel Party Travel with one’s spouse/partner or children has decreased while travel with all other types of people has increased. Prior Visitation Overall, fewer guests had visited Vail during a prior summer or winter season this summer, which boosted the share of first-time visitors to 29% (+3 ppts). The increase in first-time guests was most prominent within Day Visitors (+7 ppts). LIKELIHOOD TO RECOMMEND/RETURN & SATISFACTION NPS Category/Score The NPS Score has increased substantially from last summer to 72%, overall. The share of Promoters has increased within each visitor type, with the largest increase being seen within Colorado Overnight guests (+12 ppts), who now have the highest NPS Score among visitor types. *Excludes Seasonal and Full-Time Residents; darker bars represent 2023 data In each summer, there is no significant variation in NPS Scores between first-time and repeat visitors. *Excludes Seasonal and Full-Time Residents; darker bars represent 2023 data NPS Category/Score What would make you more likely to recommend Vail? THEMES: Affordability: Cost concerns regarding accommodations and general cost of visiting. Desire for lower activity prices, particularly gondola rides. Restaurants: Expanded restaurant hours and broader restaurant variety. *Asked if not planning to return within the next year Satisfaction Ratings Each rating with comparable data in 2022 has decreased slightly, though rarely more than 0.2 points. Interaction with town greeters saw the most notable decrease (-0.5 points) in satisfaction. Mean Ratings: Greeter Interactions Greeter interaction decreased among all visitor types, but the decrease was most notable among full-time residents (-0.8 points). Vail as a Green Destination Nearly all (96%) of guests indicated that Vail met or exceeded their expectations in the town’s commitment to sustainability. Among visitor types, full-time residents were most likely to indicate that Vail fell short of expectations. PLANNING, ACCOMMODATIONS & ACTIVITIES Information Sources Fewer guests used word of mouth, general search engines (e.g., Google), or travel review sites (e.g., TripAdvisor) as primary information sources this summer. Conversely, more guests used websites and social media in planning their trip. Overall, considerations of other resorts were akin to Summer 2022, with only minor changes occurring between years. Slightly fewer guests considered only Vail (-4 ppts) and among those that did consider other resorts, slightly more considered Beaver Creek or other locations in Colorado. Resorts Considered The share of overnight guests staying in traditional hotels and short-term rentals dropped this year vs. 2022. Timeshare was a new option on the 2023 survey and accounted for 12% of guest nights. *Excludes Seasonal and Full-Time Residents; darker bars represent 2023 data Accomodations Length of stay is relatively constant compared to 2022. *Excludes Seasonal and Full-Time Residents; darker bars represent 2023 data Nights Stayed Dining, shopping and hiking remain the activities that are most popular with visitors to Vail. Activities Overall, 75% of surveyed guests expect to return to Vail some time in the next year. Predictably, repeat visitors are far more likely to return in 12 months. Plan to Return Is there anything Vail could do to enhance your likelihood of returning for another summer vacation? THEMES: Affordability: Cost concerns regarding accommodations, activities, and restaurants. Visitors desire more affordable options across the board. Transportation/Access: Parking cost and availability. Expanded flight options and transportation options from the Denver airport. Access to hiking trails. Activities/Entertainment: Affordable family activities and expanded live entertainment/music. *Asked if not planning to return within the next year A larger share of guests reported visiting welcome centers during their trip this summer, with Vail Welcome Center seeing a 10 ppt increase to 23% and Lionshead Welcome Center seeing a 5 ppt increase to 15%. Welcome Center Visitation KEY TAKEAWAYS PR E L I M I N A R Y T R E N D S 36 Vail continues to experience strong overnight visitation, albeit seeing a slight decrease this summer, with day visits and in-state visits increasing. First-time visitors have also been slightly more common this season. NPS climbed sharply to 72% this summer, with increases seen within all visitor types. Satisfaction with the town remains strong for most guest experiences. Lowest rated was the ease of finding parking and interaction with the Town Greeters. Both declined from 2022. Three-quarters of respondents expressed intent to return to Vail within the next year. Not surprisingly, repeat visitors are most likely to return. Welcome Center visitation is growing and nearly all respondents commended Vail on their sustainability initiatives. PR E L I M I N A R Y T R E N D S 37 Word of mouth and Google remain the sources most relied upon for planning trips to Vail. However, use of local websites and social media both increased in 2023. Dining, shopping and hiking remained the most popular activities for guests. Special events dropped off slightly while cycling and water sports both increased. Looking at comments, Vail gets high marks for scenic beauty , dining options, manicured environment, activities and weather. On the negative side, high prices were the dominant theme – food, lodging and activities. Parking was also an issue for some but not as prevalent as high costs. Overall, the Vail experience receives high marks from both overnight and day visitors. Parking remains an issue but not one that is unique to Vail. Access and cost of parking are pain points in most vibrant resort towns. THANK YOU WEBSITE PERFORMANCE UPDATES 2023 Website Landscape ●2023 is a year of benchmarking and learning ○New agency partners ○Revamped strategies for web, media, content, social and video ○Overhauled tactics ○New valuable media partners ○Added and reformed systems and resources (GA4, Keydata, Crowdriff, Adara Expenditure) 2023 Media Planning ●Media plans were developed early in 2023 for March-October efforts to promote awareness ○Guiding inspiration and consideration - “Building excitement to discover the dream” “Defining the Vail experience as magical, dream-like destination for high net worth travelers”* ●Secondary efforts were planned and executed via lower funnel tactics to promote bookings throughout the year *2023 Input Brief, 12/15/22 Website KPIs Website KPIs discussed with partner team in April and presented to VLMDAC in May to help demonstrate the focus of enhancements/ changes in progress and to come ●Increase website traffic ●Increase in unique/returning visitors ●Increase pages/session ●Decreased bounce rate ●Longer session duration ○Time on site ○Time on page ●Conversions ○Visit the book-direct page ○Sign up for the newsletter ○Travel intent clicks ○Partner referral clicks ○Sustainability page views Total Traffic and Engagement January - August 15 2023 2022 Change Sessions 663,410 687,116 -3% New Users 512,185 508,301 1% New Users/Session 77%75%3% Pages/Session 1.8 1.79 1% Bounce Rate 68.1%66.33%3% Full year to date traffic to the site is down year on year, while engagement remains steady and new user session are up Total Traffic and Engagement April - August 15 2023 2022 Change Sessions 521,986 586,905 -11% New Users 402,403 440,211 -9% New Users/Session 77%75%3% Pages/Session 1.83 1.81 1% Bounce Rate 67.69%65.91%3% Full report is based on the April - August timeframe to show traffic once paid advertising started in April Total Traffic Traffic to the site was down April - August 15 ●-65k sessions, or -11%, vs same time period in 2022 Paid CPC Traffic Decrease is driven by changes in CPC investment and video strategy Cost Per Click (CPC/paid search) investment (-79.8k sessions, -39%) ○Lower investment in paid search in 2023 due to a media strategy focused on higher funnel activities ○High quality traffic with high engagement KPIs Click thrus Conversions CPC 2022 2023 Change Bounce Rate 56.66%44.74%-21% Pages/Session 2.12 2.62 +23% Book Direct Conversion Rate 1.48%2.1%+42% Paid Video Traffic Video activity (-26k sessions, -85%) ○Focused on video completion rate (VCR) within video players ○Video placements are generating awareness engagement ■Pre-Roll video placements: 71%, in line with the industry benchmark ■CTV/OTT placements: >1.5M+ video completions for an average VCR of 98% ●4.3k sessions are represent extraordinarily qualified traffic! KPIs Reach Video Completion Rate Cost per View Paid Native/Display Traffic Increases have been seen across various channels showing positive momentum: Native/Display traffic (+17k sessions, +31%) ○Traffic from native is more than making up for losses in display banner traffic due to shift of investment to focus on these native placements KPIs Display: Landing Page Visits Site Engagement Native: Content Engagement Site Engagement Paid Social Traffic Paid social Increases (+6.2k sessions, +7%) ●While spending is down -34% YOY and optimizations are going toward landing page views (LPV) and thru plays, traffic is up and placements more efficient ○2023 activity optimized for LPVs and thru plays vs 2022 activity was optimized for link clicks ●On track for greater impressions/reach/LPV with lower spend KPIs Landing Page Views (LPV), Thru Plays 2024 Paid Opportunities Opportunities to increase traffic ●Strike a balance between awareness and site traffic driving tactics to achieve VLMD goals ●Analyze audience opportunities within the funnel to drive year-round revenue growth, targeting guests who stay longer and spend more Email Traffic Email (+18k sessions, +9k%) ○Now using UTM codes to track clicks, shows strong performance ○Balances loss from [none] source Referrals Traffic Referrals from outside sites (+8.6k sessions, +53%) ○Tiktok and Facebook referrals (not direct clicks from paid media) ○Other local sources: Vailgov.com, Vail Daily (4th of July), Destination Hotels and Qualtrics (RRC) post-visit survey 2023 Organic Traffic Organic traffic increases April - August 15 (+17.2k sessions, 17%)* ●Traffic increases seen in July ○Things to Do, 4th/Fourth, Concerts, Events, Villages, Shopping, Parking and most blogs ●Blogs and Things to Do pages are leading the way with 30% and 29% of organic traffic, respectively; followed by Events at 8% */things-to-do/?sort=summer activity taken out of organic numbers Organic Traffic Organic traffic YOY is up ●Via Google Search Console, data is showing very strong performance YTD (4/1-8/15) ●As well as for the latest month (August) ●Page 1 keywords hit an all-time high in August at 743 ○+19% Increase MOM; +54% increase YOY 2024 Organic Opportunities Opportunities to increase traffic: ●Continue to produce new high-quality blogs produced with keywords, competitors and content gaps in mind ●Continue to optimize current content for better search visibility ○Integrate additional site pages based on high impact/visitation ●Incorporate non-branded/Colorado keywords ●Continue to crosslink and convert outbound links when possible, and fix broken links ●Review KPIs in trusted tools outside of GA - Google Search Console, Semrush, Brightedge ○Page 1, position, clicks, CTR, total keywords 2024 Organic Opportunities ●Other activities in progress ○Alt Text on photos ○Videos migrated to YouTube ○Rework blog headlines ○Consistency of title tags ○Redirect 404s ○Remove duplicate content ○Consolidate short, low-traffic blogs into roundups 2024 Owned Opportunities Opportunities to increase traffic: Owned ●Continue to maximize opportunities for traffic-driving within emails and social media activity ○Instituted UTMs in social posts for better tracking 2023 Conversions April-August 15 2023 2022 Change Book Direct Clicks 5,523 5,410 2% Book Direct Rate 1.06% 0.92% 15% Newsletter Sign Ups 979 1,682 -42% Partner Referrals 77,270 82,350 -6% Travel intent Clicks 8,575 Sustainability Page Views 147 Conversions for Book Direct are trending up given specific 2023 lodging efforts ●Newsletters down due to fall off of modal unit on site; reinstated in late Aug ●Partner referrals down, but picking up with new content and optimizations ●Travel intent and sustainability page view metrics started in early-mid June ANALYTICS & CRM UPDATE Email Database Growth Our database has grown 7.5x since September 2020 Email Database Growth in 2023 Our database has grown +40K since the beginning of 2023 (+59K in the last 12 months) Engaged Contacts Active contacts (opened or clicked on at least one email) account for 58% (130K) of the total database Database Size by Source The vast majority (73%) of our contacts still come from WiFi Working to drive growth in Newsletter and Event Geographic Mix by Source ●Ongoing database sources tend to have fewer contacts with unknown geos ●The majority of new contacts from wifi are from outside Colorado ●The majority of contacts from lists imported in Jan 2022 (Mailchimp and Vailapp) had a higher mix of unknown geos Analytics Accomplishments Expansion of data sources used to provide insights via new reports and dashboards: ●ActiveCampaign – database and email performance ●Epsilon – 3rd party appended data to the database ●Google Analytics (via dashboard) – web traffic and clicks ●Destimetrics (via Cactus dashboards) – Hotel lodging occupancy and ADR ●KeyData – short term rental occupancy and ADR ●Aislelabs – guest visitation (wifi logins) Analytics Accomplishments Migration of all reports to Tableau Online ●Reports from all data sources have been created and part of monthly reporting uploaded to Tableau Online ●Reports will soon be accessible to a broader audience via Tableau Online ○Expanded number of Tableau licenses will begin with Sep/Oct 2023 license renewal to include key partners and consumers of data Analytics Q4 Focus ●Complete hypothesis process for campaigns in 2023 ●Develop an engagement dashboard ●Expand insights using existing data sources based on the needs of the business and partners ●Implement Adara data for additional insights (marketing impressions, clicks and potentially revenue) Email Metrics CRM Accomplishments ●2 new lifecycle emails: Happy Birthday (3.2% click rate) and Re-Engagement in January 2023 ●3 new email types: Don’t Miss Events (2.2% Click rate YTD), Lodging Focus (7% click rate YTD) & Activity Focus ●Improved and increased split testing → 44 split tests ran YTD driving continuous optimization - up from 19 YTD 2022, new tracking in place for ease of knowledge share ●Enhanced reporting, data access and analysis with data analyst collaboration ●Optimized segmentation strategy with Epsilon data showing improved engagement rates ●Onboarding and process optimization with new partners ●Use of ChatGPT for increased versioning and personalization Overall Email Performance Goal: +30% Goal: +35% Goal: >1.6% Goal: <0.7% Engagement Trend by Email Type ●Highest click rates YTD for Marketing emails in June/July/August -> driven primarily by the new email lodging and event emails ●Lifecycle email click rates dip as expected in Feb and June due to re-engagement campaigns ●Overall click rates trending upward for Marketing emails ●Transactional emails see a spike when events increase in the summer Email Performance by Specific Type ●We expect our Lifecycle emails to always perform better than Marketing ●Any activity seen on the Re-engagement campaign is a win as it is re-activating an existing lead ●Addition of 3 new Marketing emails this summer, 2 of which are top performers: Events and Lodging Email Performance by Source ●Engagement rates are highest with Newsletter subscribers & the original Mail Chimp subscription list whose primary intention was to receive and read our emails ●Other sources are a mix of event lists with "hidden opt in", event activations, contests, and quizzes - Some are very engaged because they are in Vail or taking part in online contests or quizzes, but many unsubscribe because they don't actually want to continue hearing from us CRM Q4 Focus Ongoing ●2-3 Marketing emails per month with segmentation and split tests ~29 emails to be created and sent in remainder of 2023 ●Update of 11 lifecycle emails for winter and holidays ●Continued segmentation utilizing epsilon data, click data, past event attendance data and wifi visitation data ●Reporting, analysis and campaign optimization ●2024 planning New ●Vailcation quiz database and email support/activation and marketing ●Addition of lifecycle emails: onsite retargeting, in-person outreach ●Continued customer journey & personalization analysis with use of WiFi visitation data VAIL BOT DEMO Vail Bot Demo Demo to take place live during meeting VIDEO STRATEGY & DISTRIBUTION PLAN Video Strategy - Background ●Video audit lead to: ○Organization of existing finished video library and beginning a YouTube strategy ○Creation of new videos by repurposing existing footage in areas we saw gaps and opportunities, in alignment with content initiatives across web and social ○Production of new social-first Discover series for vertical content creation and increase video library assets (horizontal and vertical) Video Strategy 50 NEW! ●20 social-first repurposed ○15 newly produced videos with existing footage ○5 more in production / coming soon ●30 planned in Discover Series ○14 in post-production ○More just finished shooting yesterday! 119 videos in library or currently in production Video Strategy YouTube ●YouTube Channel refresh ○Slowly introduce videos to grow channel following ■Posting 1x/week on Wednesdays ○Post seasonally to start ■Integrate evergreen content over time ○Post YouTube Shorts 1–2x a week on the platform once presence is established https://www.youtube.com/@discovervailco Distribution Strategy ●Working with outlets across the partner team to plan best integration and distribution strategy ○Organic social media ○Website ■Blogs ■Landing Pages ○Email ○Other communications/needs ■Groups ■International Organic Social Media ●Facebook & Instagram ○Posting a Reel once a week ○Reels being utilized are seasonally specific and fit with the overall content that Discover Vail’s Facebook and Instagram are utilizing any given month. ●Each video, on all three platforms (including YT), is shared with a link back to Discover Vail’s website with related content to the video to increase site traffic Other Digital Content ●Reviewed videos to provide initial thoughts on placements for web and email ○Horizontal videos have been matched with related blog and other site content - will begin to post on site ○Video inclusions in enews assessed, particularly as it relates to blogs that will have video featured ■Will include existing video recommendations for enews in the 2024 content plan ○Recommendation also includes related site content ■Ex: Adding links on Instagram Stories to site ●Will be reviewing in detail with partners to dive into all possibilities Video Strategy - Next Steps ●Partner meeting ●Posting to site working with 970 ●Continuing to post video content on social channels while growing the YouTube account’s engagement ○Posting to YouTube Shorts platform as the account grows ●Uploading to Intelligence Bank ○Currently available in Miles’ DAM; developing strategy for upload, organization and tagging TOV UPDATES Thank you! Upcoming Meetings: VLMDAC Monthly Meeting, October 19, 2023, Grand View Room