Staff Board of DirectorsDebbie F. Kovalik Department Director

Barbara J. Bowman Division Manager

Mistalynn L. MeyeraanMarketing & Public Relations Coordinator

Erin A. Chapman Sales Coordinator

Kristin C. Lynch Convention & Event Services Coordinator

Brad Taylor - Chair Colorado State Parks (Ret.)

Sharon Woelfle - Vice Chair America’s Best Value Inn

Glen Gallegos Gallegos Corp.Regent - University of Colorado

Kate Graham Conservation Colorado

Kim L. Machado Administrative Specialist

Kathy Plunk Administrative Assistant

Holly L. Prickett Marketing & Public Relations Assistant

Kerry Graves Sales Assistant

Katharina Morrison Visitor Services Specialist

Susie KigerCurly Q Communications Marketing

Per Nilsson (Through June 2015)DoubleTree Hotel

Kevin Reimer Main Street Management

Billie Witham Two Rivers Winery and Chateau

Sharon Woelfle Americas Best Value Inn

VisitGrandJunction.com

Thanks to the VCB Board of Directors and to all of our Tourism partners for your continued commitment and support. We live in an amazing destination that has the ability to create endless “Magic Moments in Hospitality”!

A total of $85,063 (a $15,122 increase over 2014) was allocated to support local special events in 2015. Large events assisted include the Colorado Mountain Winefest, GJ Off-Road Endurance Mountain Bike Event, JUCO (Junior College World Series), Ride the Rockies, and the Special Olympics Colorado Summer Games.

Over $31,600 of the above total investment was granted as part of the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau Board of Directors special event marketing grants. This ongoing program assists events with marketing outside of Mesa County to drive overnight visitation to Grand Junction. Events funded included:

• CO Lavender Festival • CPRA Rodeo Finals • Desert RATS Trailrunning Festival • Dinosaur Days • Downtown GJ Art & Music Fest • Downtown Car Show • Dreamcatcher Half Marathon • Grand Junction Air Show • HITS Triathlon

Special Event Funding

• Maverick Classic• MOG Fest• Palisade Bluegrass & Roots Music Festival• Palisade Peach Festival• Rim Rock Marathon• Rumble at 18 Road• Tour de Vineyards• Tour of the Moon• Tour of the Valley

Convention and Event Services

20,000+ CONVENTION ATTENDEES

Groups receive extraordinary customer service and assistance from GJVCB’s Convention Services Department. From weddings and reunions to major events, groups visiting Grand Junction leave with a positive experience. In 2015, over 120 groups were served utilizing complimentary event services offered by the GJVCB including welcome packets, planning resources, attendance builders, visitor information, and volunteers. We also supported major events such as JUCO, Ride the Rockies, Special Olympics, and Tour of the Moon. It took over 460 touches with group and event coordinators to establish the needs of the participants and the services necessary for groups planning to visit Grand Junction between 2015 and 2018.

Tourism Matters. Tourism has finally turned the corner and the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau has much to celebrate! 2015 was the best year in 5 years for lodging tax revenues –

9.1% increase over 2014 – which is the highest year for collections since 2008! This increase corresponded with the overwhelming positive year-end stories heard valley wide from tourism partners.

Along with this, Grand Junction experienced a slight increase in occupancy, a $3.56 increase in the average daily hotel rate to $83.19 and a $2.27 increase in REVPAR to $49.16.

Lower gas prices and large events added to this year’s success.

All national research is indicating that 2016 will also be a strong tourism year, especially with lower gas prices and the 100th Year Anniversary of the National Parks Service. A beautiful picture, by local resident Donna Fullerton, of the Colorado National Monument is highlighted as the

cover photo for the National Parks 100th Year Celebration publication!

The GJVCB will be completing a year-long tourism economic impact study in 2016 and will be eager to present the results in early 2017.

2015 ANNUAL REPORT

• PR Return on investment (ROI) of $11/$1

• Deskside meetings locations included Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and New York City.

• Breakdown of coverage placements: Web 40%, Broadcast 14%, Magazine 17%, Newspaper 20%, Blog 8%.

• Sales Leads: 97 • Familiarization Tours: 17 • Site Inspections: 8

• Industry Tradeshows/Events: 19* (major only)

• Contacts: 3,568

In 2105, Public Relations produced a 73% increase in impressions and a $402,349.00 estimated ad value for earned media. Coverage highlights included Yahoo, Elevation Outdoors, Denver Post, Girlsgetaway.com, Denver Life, Golf Advisor, CW2, Fox21, Mix 100.3, Colorado Springs Gazette, USA Today, The Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda, plus many more.

visitors, plus Grand Valley residents and businesses. The Visitor Center is open 7 days a week and is staffed by 90 volunteers who donated over 8,800 service hours at the Visitor Center and Grand Junction Regional Airport in 2015. The volunteers are also vital in providing services to special events and groups business.

The international market continued to increase in 2015 in Grand Junction as a result of direct sales efforts by the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau (GJVCB) and working hand-in-hand with the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO). Increased hotel rates in Moab continue to influence tour operators to utilize Grand Junction as a hub and spoke for lodging. The VCB has also been successful in working to open new markets such as China and Japan, in collaboration with the CTO, resulting in new group tour programs for 2015 and 2016.

• Working with 262 international tour companies.

• The Grand Junction Visitor Center welcomed tourists from 40 different countries in 2015. The top most-visited countries were: Canada (357), Germany (182), England (147), and from far away Australia (97).

• Information translated in Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Chinese, and new in 2015 – Italian!

• VisitGrandJunction.com has home pages in French, Spanish, and German

• GJVCB participates in 3 annual national tradeshows/missions for international tour companies: IPW (Pow Wow), GoWest and the Japanese Sales Seminar.

In 2015, VisitGrandJunction.com broke previous year’s traffic records again with the assistance of Miles Media Group. More than 690,000 total visits to the website represent over 30 percent growth from 2014. Successful enewsletters, content marketing, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization drove additional site usage. Personalized homepage content ensured that tailored messages kept website visitors engaged as well as increasing awareness and interest in the destination.

This year, for the first time, the Official Visitor Guide featured Layar, an augmented reality tool that enables readers to use their smart phones

In 2015, Hill Aevium created a new campaign for the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau. “Dramatically Different” was an over-arching concept, which won a Bronze HSMAI Adrian Award. This campaign was broken out into seven different ad groups: General, Wine, Monument, Adventure, Family, Girls Getaway, and Event. In addition, Grand Junction returned to its roots with a language change to Colorado’s Wine Country instead of Colorado Wine Country.

Creating tantalizing and inspirational content with a focus on quality photography was the goal for GJVCB social media in 2015. A weekly calendar keeps the pages interactive, while organic posts serve content that is relevant and fresh. The best performing social post to date has reached nearly 160,000 people via Facebook with 12,176 likes, 1,317 comments, 9,579 post clicks, and over 2,000 shares of “Two Seasons Collide”. The GJVCB participated in two Colorado Tourism Office co-op campaigns on the state’s channels, resulting in great success. The GJVCB is grateful to the local photographer contributors!

Year July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec ‘15 167,188 152,477 154,543 155,527 119,713 75,307 ‘14 141,316 135,595 140,007 136,486 108,813 72,413

Year Jan Feb March April May June ‘15 64,253 60,367 67,390 87,996 101,206 159,366 ‘14 61,014 59,053 62,400 86,022 98,401 149,765

Often, the Group Sales Department of the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau is the first point of contact for conventions, motorcoaches, tournaments, weddings, reunions, meetings and events considering Grand Junction. The expertise of the VCB staff assists these groups with information on lodging properties, meeting space, activities, attractions, restaurants and airlines to entice them to bring their event to Grand Junction.

Marketing Highlights

Lodging Tax Collection

Group Sales

Public Relations

International

Visitor Center & Volunteers

$2,485,181 IN ECONOMIC

IMPACT

TOTAL COLLECTIONS

‘15: $1,365,332 ‘14: $1,251,285

+9.1%

90 VOLUNTEERS GIVE OVER

8,800 HOURS OF SERVICE

ADVERTISING

SOCIAL MEDIA

INTERNET & WEBSITE

300 MILLION IMPRESSIONS

Grand Junction is a land like no other, a land where comfortable lodging and meeting spaces sit close to 22 wineries, world-class golfing, majestic rivers, and Colorado National Monument.

Hold your meeting here and enjoy the dramatic difference of Colorado’s Wine Country.

meetgrandjunction.com 800-962-2547

Grand Junction is a different side of Colorado, a land where you can be exhilarated. Where you can mountain bike from a desert trail into any of the 22 wineries…wine and dine next to majestic rivers…explore the Grand Mesa and Colorado National Monument in an afternoon.

So come, stay awhile, and enjoy the dramatic difference of Colorado’s Wine Country.

visitgrandjunction.com or call 800-962-2547

UNIQUE WEBSITE VISITS

Additional highlights include over 13,414,735 brand and media impressions through TV, Radio, Print, Outdoor Billboards and Online efforts. The group sales efforts included a direct mail piece inviting organizations to “Spice Up your Next Group Meeting” in Grand Junction, resulting in an 13.92% response rate and an HSMAI Silver Adrian Award.

The interactive Visitor Center, located at 740 Horizon Drive, provides assistance, information, and service to The GJVCB team, with the assistance of Ore Communications, hosted

77 members of media, both domestic and international, on FAM (familiarization) tours in the Grand Valley.

10,579 Fans (33% increase over 2014)

1,791 Followers

55 Subscribers

570 Followers

1,591 Followers

14 Followers

to scan the guide’s pages for additional online content. This kind of emerging technology can help reach visitors in new and exciting ways in the digital-savvy 21st century. The GJVCB is an early adopter for this technology among DMOs.

OVER 1.8 MILLION

PAGEVIEWS

WON 2 HSMAI AWARDS

‘11 ‘12 ‘13 ‘14 ‘15

400,000

535,204

300,000

200,000

100,000

0

• PR Return on investment (ROI) of $11/$1

• Deskside meetings locations included Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and New York City.

• Breakdown of coverage placements: Web 40%, Broadcast 14%, Magazine 17%, Newspaper 20%, Blog 8%.

• Sales Leads: 97 • Familiarization Tours: 17 • Site Inspections: 8

• Industry Tradeshows/Events: 19* (major only)

• Contacts: 3,568

In 2105, Public Relations produced a 73% increase in impressions and a $402,349.00 estimated ad value for earned media. Coverage highlights included Yahoo, Elevation Outdoors, Denver Post, Girlsgetaway.com, Denver Life, Golf Advisor, CW2, Fox21, Mix 100.3, Colorado Springs Gazette, USA Today, The Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda, plus many more.

visitors, plus Grand Valley residents and businesses. The Visitor Center is open 7 days a week and is staffed by 90 volunteers who donated over 8,800 service hours at the Visitor Center and Grand Junction Regional Airport in 2015. The volunteers are also vital in providing services to special events and groups business.

The international market continued to increase in 2015 in Grand Junction as a result of direct sales efforts by the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau (GJVCB) and working hand-in-hand with the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO). Increased hotel rates in Moab continue to influence tour operators to utilize Grand Junction as a hub and spoke for lodging. The VCB has also been successful in working to open new markets such as China and Japan, in collaboration with the CTO, resulting in new group tour programs for 2015 and 2016.

• Working with 262 international tour companies.

• The Grand Junction Visitor Center welcomed tourists from 40 different countries in 2015. The top most-visited countries were: Canada (357), Germany (182), England (147), and from far away Australia (97).

• Information translated in Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Chinese, and new in 2015 – Italian!

• VisitGrandJunction.com has home pages in French, Spanish, and German

• GJVCB participates in 3 annual national tradeshows/missions for international tour companies: IPW (Pow Wow), GoWest and the Japanese Sales Seminar.

In 2015, VisitGrandJunction.com broke previous year’s traffic records again with the assistance of Miles Media Group. More than 690,000 total visits to the website represent over 30 percent growth from 2014. Successful enewsletters, content marketing, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization drove additional site usage. Personalized homepage content ensured that tailored messages kept website visitors engaged as well as increasing awareness and interest in the destination.

This year, for the first time, the Official Visitor Guide featured Layar, an augmented reality tool that enables readers to use their smart phones

In 2015, Hill Aevium created a new campaign for the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau. “Dramatically Different” was an over-arching concept, which won a Bronze HSMAI Adrian Award. This campaign was broken out into seven different ad groups: General, Wine, Monument, Adventure, Family, Girls Getaway, and Event. In addition, Grand Junction returned to its roots with a language change to Colorado’s Wine Country instead of Colorado Wine Country.

Creating tantalizing and inspirational content with a focus on quality photography was the goal for GJVCB social media in 2015. A weekly calendar keeps the pages interactive, while organic posts serve content that is relevant and fresh. The best performing social post to date has reached nearly 160,000 people via Facebook with 12,176 likes, 1,317 comments, 9,579 post clicks, and over 2,000 shares of “Two Seasons Collide”. The GJVCB participated in two Colorado Tourism Office co-op campaigns on the state’s channels, resulting in great success. The GJVCB is grateful to the local photographer contributors!

Year July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec ‘15 167,188 152,477 154,543 155,527 119,713 75,307 ‘14 141,316 135,595 140,007 136,486 108,813 72,413

Year Jan Feb March April May June ‘15 64,253 60,367 67,390 87,996 101,206 159,366 ‘14 61,014 59,053 62,400 86,022 98,401 149,765

Often, the Group Sales Department of the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau is the first point of contact for conventions, motorcoaches, tournaments, weddings, reunions, meetings and events considering Grand Junction. The expertise of the VCB staff assists these groups with information on lodging properties, meeting space, activities, attractions, restaurants and airlines to entice them to bring their event to Grand Junction.

Marketing Highlights

Lodging Tax Collection

Group Sales

Public Relations

International

Visitor Center & Volunteers

$2,485,181 IN ECONOMIC

IMPACT

TOTAL COLLECTIONS

‘15: $1,365,332 ‘14: $1,251,285

+9.1%

90 VOLUNTEERS GIVE OVER

8,800 HOURS OF SERVICE

ADVERTISING

SOCIAL MEDIA

INTERNET & WEBSITE

300 MILLION IMPRESSIONS

Grand Junction is a land like no other, a land where comfortable lodging and meeting spaces sit close to 22 wineries, world-class golfing, majestic rivers, and Colorado National Monument.

Hold your meeting here and enjoy the dramatic difference of Colorado’s Wine Country.

meetgrandjunction.com 800-962-2547

Grand Junction is a different side of Colorado, a land where you can be exhilarated. Where you can mountain bike from a desert trail into any of the 22 wineries…wine and dine next to majestic rivers…explore the Grand Mesa and Colorado National Monument in an afternoon.

So come, stay awhile, and enjoy the dramatic difference of Colorado’s Wine Country.

visitgrandjunction.com or call 800-962-2547

UNIQUE WEBSITE VISITS

Additional highlights include over 13,414,735 brand and media impressions through TV, Radio, Print, Outdoor Billboards and Online efforts. The group sales efforts included a direct mail piece inviting organizations to “Spice Up your Next Group Meeting” in Grand Junction, resulting in an 13.92% response rate and an HSMAI Silver Adrian Award.

The interactive Visitor Center, located at 740 Horizon Drive, provides assistance, information, and service to The GJVCB team, with the assistance of Ore Communications, hosted

77 members of media, both domestic and international, on FAM (familiarization) tours in the Grand Valley.

10,579 Fans (33% increase over 2014)

1,791 Followers

55 Subscribers

570 Followers

1,591 Followers

14 Followers

to scan the guide’s pages for additional online content. This kind of emerging technology can help reach visitors in new and exciting ways in the digital-savvy 21st century. The GJVCB is an early adopter for this technology among DMOs.

OVER 1.8 MILLION

PAGEVIEWS

WON 2 HSMAI AWARDS

‘11 ‘12 ‘13 ‘14 ‘15

400,000

535,204

300,000

200,000

100,000

0

Staff Board of DirectorsDebbie F. Kovalik Department Director

Barbara J. Bowman Division Manager

Mistalynn L. MeyeraanMarketing & Public Relations Coordinator

Erin A. Chapman Sales Coordinator

Kristin C. Lynch Convention & Event Services Coordinator

Brad Taylor - Chair Colorado State Parks (Ret.)

Sharon Woelfle - Vice Chair America’s Best Value Inn

Don Bramer Hospitality Industry (Ret.)

Glen Gallegos Gallegos Corp.Regent - University of Colorado

Kim L. Machado Administrative Specialist

Kathy Plunk Administrative Assistant

Holly L. Prickett Marketing & Public Relations Assistant

Kerry Graves Sales Assistant

Katharina Morrison Visitor Services Specialist

Kate Graham Conservation Colorado

Susie KigerCurly Q Communications Marketing

Per Nilsson (Through June 2015)DoubleTree Hotel

Kevin Reimer Main Street Management

Billie Witham Two Rivers Winery and Chateau

VisitGrandJunction.com

Thanks to the VCB Board of Directors and to all of our Tourism partners for your continued commitment and support. We live in an amazing destination that has the ability to create endless “Magic Moments in Hospitality”!

A total of $85,063 (a $15,122 increase over 2014) was allocated to support local special events in 2015. Large events assisted include the Colorado Mountain Winefest, GJ Off-Road Endurance Mountain Bike Event, JUCO (Junior College World Series), Ride the Rockies, and the Special Olympics Colorado Summer Games.

Over $31,600 of the above total investment was granted as part of the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau Board of Directors special event marketing grants. This ongoing program assists events with marketing outside of Mesa County to drive overnight visitation to Grand Junction. Events funded included:

• CO Lavender Festival • CPRA Rodeo Finals • Desert RATS Trailrunning Festival • Dinosaur Days • Downtown GJ Art & Music Fest • Downtown Car Show • Dreamcatcher Half Marathon • Grand Junction Air Show • HITS Triathlon

Special Event Funding

• Maverick Classic• MOG Fest• Palisade Bluegrass & Roots Music Festival• Palisade Peach Festival• Rim Rock Marathon• Rumble at 18 Road• Tour de Vineyards• Tour of the Moon• Tour of the Valley

Convention and Event Services

20,000+ CONVENTION ATTENDEES

Groups receive extraordinary customer service and assistance from GJVCB’s Convention Services Department. From weddings and reunions to major events, groups visiting Grand Junction leave with a positive experience. In 2015, over 120 groups were served utilizing complimentary event services offered by the GJVCB including welcome packets, planning resources, attendance builders, visitor information, and volunteers. We also supported major events such as JUCO, Ride the Rockies, Special Olympics, and Tour of the Moon. It took over 460 touches with group and event coordinators to establish the needs of the participants and the services necessary for groups planning to visit Grand Junction between 2015 and 2018.

Tourism Matters. Tourism has finally turned the corner and the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau has much to celebrate! 2015 was the best year in 5 years for lodging tax revenues –

9.1% increase over 2014 – which is the highest year for collections since 2008! This increase corresponded with the overwhelming positive year-end stories heard valley wide from tourism partners.

Along with this, Grand Junction experienced a slight increase in occupancy, a $3.56 increase in the average daily hotel rate to $83.19 and a $2.27 increase in REVPAR to $49.16.

Lower gas prices and large events added to this year’s success.

All national research is indicating that 2016 will also be a strong tourism year, especially with lower gas prices and the 100th Year Anniversary of the National Parks Service. A beautiful picture, by local resident Donna Fullerton, of the Colorado National Monument is highlighted as the

cover photo for the National Parks 100th Year Celebration publication!

The GJVCB will be completing a year-long tourism economic impact study in 2016 and will be eager to present the results in early 2017.

2015 ANNUAL REPORT