Labor Day weekend typically marks the end of the worst part of the summer tourist season.
Or… the conclusion of the best part of the summer tourist season, depending on your perspective.
The City Market Parking lot was full yesterday, on Labor Day. Presumably, the employees were being paid overtime pay.
And presumably, a full parking lot on Labor Day is some type of data… if you’re into collecting data.
What does the data tell us? Do we understand the data we’re collecting?
Did we, in fact, design the data collection to tell us what we wanted to hear?
Three applicants — Austin Marchand, Jesse Hensle and Shane Lucero — threw their names in the hat for a vacant ‘at-large’ seat on the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board, at their August 20 board meeting.
The Tourism Board is responsible for developing and spending an annual budget of around $1.2 million, with revenues coming mainly from two sources: Town of Pagosa Springs’ 4.9% Lodging Tax, and Archuleta County’s 1.9% Lodging Tax. Traditionally, the money has been spent on marketing the community as a tourist destination, and on events and infrastructure to enhance the tourist experience.
To my knowledge, the Tourism Board has never spent its money to discourage tourists. But some of us local residents might wish they had.
Five of the nine Board seats represent other community boards: the Chamber of Commerce, the Realtors Association, the (possibly non-existent?) Lodgers Association, the Pagosa Springs Town Council, and the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners. Four seats are “at large”, but one of those seats must represent the ‘Short-Term Rental’ industry, and another must represent ‘Recreation/Hospitality’.
Somehow, ‘Recreation’ and ‘Hospitality’ have been bundled together in the minds of our elected leaders.
Due to the board member requirements, the Tourism Board tends to be dominated by people directly involved in the tourism/real estate industries, which (in my opinion) makes the Board into a somewhat incestuous organization. Which is not to say the Board members all agree all the time. But we can safely say, the Tourism Board does not accurately represent the overall community.
In his application for the vacant ‘at-large’ seat, local hot air balloon operator Austin Marchand responded to the query, “Explain why you are seeking appointment to the Tourism Board.”
I am seeking appointment because my business largely relies on tourism. I love Pagosa and am passionate about community development.
The second applicant interviewed at the August 20 meeting was Jesse Hensle, the Marketing Director at The Springs Resort. He wrote about positive impacts.
With my passion for building brands, I’m excited by the potential to work with the tourism board to promote Pagosa Springs as a top travel destination. I’m confident I can make a positive impact and help see our tourism grow in sustainable ways to have a positive impact for Pagosans.
We’ll hear a bit more from Mr. Hensle in this article series, to better understand what he means by “sustainable” and “positive impact.”
The third applicant to be interviewed was Shane Lucero, who occupied the at-large seat in question until August 18, when his term expired. Mr. Lucero was formerly Marketing Director for The Springs Resort but lately has been developing his own business, organizing and marketing community events, and additionally plans to open a restaurant in the uptown area. Mr. Lucero wrote at a bit more length than the other two applicants. Here’s an excerpt:
I am seeking a seat on the Tourism Board because I actually enjoy serving on the board. This is a working board that actually gets their feet on the ground and does more than just cast votes in a meeting room. I have helped with all the events that the Tourism Department staff have been tasked to organize such as Halloween Hootenanny, Big Spring Clean, Tourism Conference, Old Fashioned Christmas. I have also invested in learning more about tourism by attending GovCon [Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference] and Grand Circle meetings…
Pagosa Springs is navigating some interesting paths with tourism and I would like to be part of how we move through all the challenges with different views from elected officials as well as locals and visitors…
Ah, yes. All the challenges, with different views. Something to move through.
I’ve been following the Town Tourism Committee (later to become the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board) since about 2006, when Pagosa Springs voters approved a 4.9% tax on lodging revenues within the town limits. The County government was already collecting a 1.9% Lodgers Tax from motels and bed&breakfast hosts, which the County simply donated to the Pagosa Springs Chamber of Commerce to handle our tourism marketing.
But the County was collecting relatively little revenue in 2006. Colorado limited county governments to a 1.9% rate.
The Town government wasn’t under the same restraint, so negotiations were conducted with the town lodgers and an agreement was reached to establish a new Town lodging tax, with the understanding that the revenues would be used exclusively for tourism marketing and to fund tourist-friendly events and infrastructure — thus saving the lodging and tourism industries from having to fund their own marketing.
The town voters happily approved the plan, knowing that the only people paying the tax would be the tourists themselves.
Within a few years, the combined Town and County lodging taxes were generating so much money, that the Town Tourism Board decided they wanted to spend the money themselves, instead of handing it over to the Chamber of Commerce.
Historically, many of the tourists who came to visit fell in love with Pagosa Springs… its scenic beauty, its recreational opportunities, its churches, its ‘small town atmosphere’. Soon, the real estate industry found itself making record commissions, as home prices climbed ever higher.
Everything seemed to be going swell.
Unless you were employed by the tourism or hospitality industry, in which case Pagosa was more like a disaster slowly unfolding.
But the marketing continues to evolve, as we will hear.