ACRA Vice President of Marketing Eliza Voss said that within 2023, it prioritized “three pillars” of the ADMP, which were addressing visitor pressure, enhancing the Aspen experience, and preserving small town character. She told the council that the initiatives under the ADMP were not only focused on enhancing the visitor experience, but also about preserving what makes Aspen unique for generations to come.
“Our focused efforts in 2023 have been about creating a harmonious balance between a thriving resort economy and the well-being of our local community,” she said.
With regard to addressing visitor pressure, she said initiatives included campaigns promoting sustainability, highlighted by the Aspen Pledge, which encourages responsible behavior among tourists and locals. The funds raised through this initiative went toward regeneration of public lands.
She outlined efforts to enhance the Aspen experience have come from ongoing support for legacy community events, including the Wintersköl celebrations, the Food & Wine Classic, as well as events such as the World Cup and Aspen Gay Ski Week.
As far as preserving Aspen’s small-town character, Voss said ACRA has partnered with the Colorado Tourism Office to launch the Aspen Learning Lab, an educational platform designed to instill new employees and front-line workers with an in-depth understanding of the community.
Mayor Torre said he appreciated the continued focus of shifting tourism funds to the on the ground experience in Aspen.
“When somebody comes to visit and goes home and tells their stories, that’s the greatest marketing that we have,” he said.
While ACRA was mostly praised, Council member Bill Guth had a few respectful yet critical questions. At one point, he asked how specific measuring is being done to determine the success of destination management plans, further calling for a more clear understanding of the “tangible metrics” involved such as improved trails, less trash on the streets, and evidence of the environment being respected.
“You’re promoting people to be respectful of the environment and leave it the way they found it. How are we measuring whether or not that’s actually happening?” he asked. “For me, if I can’t see specific data that shows that we are impacting the tangibles, I can’t continue to support that kind of work. You clearly have identified a problem within this community – that tourism wasn’t respecting certain things – so how are we ensuring that we’re correcting those things they weren’t respecting?”
In a response, Voss said that extensive research is relied on to ask if people are aware of their efforts. In a larger report, it showed 46% of respondents were aware of destination marketing efforts. A secondary question was asked in that same report of people’s feeling toward tourism as it relates to destination marketing, which she said they saw improvements within.
ACRA’s contractor, David Holder of Clarity of Place, also presented a data review that highlighted ways ACRA can utilize data to inform decisions. He outlined how comments collected from visitors, residents, and businesses can inform a management model based on quantitative capacity data, alongside qualitative comfort data expressed in the survey results.
In response to a question posed by Guth regarding how much money was paid for the work by Clarity of Place, Voss said she believed the contract was $7,000. Guth stated he didn’t “understand the purpose of the work” performed by Clarity of Place based on the presentation presented during Monday’s meeting.
“I could have told you about those seasonal patterns, and I could explain them maybe a little bit better; I really don’t understand the purpose of that,” he said. “I’m sorry to be critical; I’m just not sure that I gained anything from that, and I don’t even work in this field, I just live here.”
Voss replied by explaining the purpose of using data to inform decisions, and while she understood the sentiment, she’s not in a position to make initiatives based on people’s feelings but rather from data.
“We’re using a data model to inform how should we be activating, for example, off-peak with in-peak, which is what we would say from Thanksgiving to pre-Christmas; the tourism infrastructure is in place, the community is ready to welcome people, and that data will say that SkiCo, Snowmass tourism, ACRA can make an effort to try to grow that business during that time of year,” she said.
The full 2023 Highlight video, as well as referenced research reports, can be found in the Data Center on Aspenchamber.org.
To reach Jonson Kuhn, email him at jkuhn@aspentimes.com.
