VisitRainier Board Minutes: June 2010

Ashford, Whittaker Mountaineering
June 10, 2010

Attendance: Rehne Copeland-Vanek, Dee Patterson, Steven Cadematori, Jeremy Foust, Pam Newlun, Adam Angel, Mary Kay Nelson, Annalee Tobey and Julie Johnson. Maree Lerchen was absent. Guests included: Randy King, NPS; Pam Painter, MRVA.

The Meeting was called to order at 10:15am by President Jeremy Foust. The March minutes were amended to add Dee to the attendance list. Steven moved and Adam seconded to approve the minutes. Motion carried.

Mt. Rainier National Park Update:
Randy King was invited to provide an update about what is happening in the park this year. He discussed the shuttle contract that will allow shuttles to run between Ashford and Paradise in June until September and a feasibility study is in progress to meet the needs for future transportation issues. The visitor center at Sunrise will be closed most of the season for renovation of exhibits, possibly opening the end of August. In the meantime other areas will be used to handle visitors.

There will be resurfacing of Hwy 123, Hwy 410 and campgrounds causing some delays and inconvenience for park visitors this summer. Twenty minute delays can be expected in July and August. In 2011, the Stevens Canyon Rd will have major rehabilitation and resurfacing and in 2012, the Nisqually Entrance road will be rehabilitated. Randy also discussed the proposals for the future of the Carbon River area. He expects there will be a decision made this fall. There will be a program presented to the public to collect ideas of what people want in their national parks by the Secretary of the Interior on July 1st, in Seattle. Randy will send an invitation to the VR board who can then distribute to interested citizens.

Regarding flight-seeing over Mt. Rainier, Randy explained there are 5 operators authorized to fly over Mt. Rainier as commercial aviation operators. These are based out of the Seattle area. The one advertised in Ashford is not authorized to fly over the park, but can make commercial flights outside of the park boundaries. The viability of doing flights within the park or over the mountain is questionable due to challenging weather patterns, costs and interest. The concern about restrictions of winter snow play at Paradise was mentioned. There appeared to be an unusual amount of unhappy visitors this year with unmet expectations for snowplay access. Randy sympathized with these concerns and suggested anyone with ideas or feedback to contact NPS with those comments. In the future, VR's role could be to help communicate clearly what people could expect at the snowplay area.

Financials:
Mary Kay presented the financial documents. At this point in the year she reported all funds awarded in 2010 are committed or spent. The dollars that remain are those carried forward from 2009. Now that 2011 Pierce County funding appears to be determined, she suggested we move forward with projects that will utilize a portion of the reserve funds (while still saving the $20,000 reserve account). Mary Kay will propose a mid-year supplemental budget for the board's consideration via email approval. It was agreed that the board did not want to wait till October. There are several items that can be funded with the remaining $19,000.

2011 Pierce County Lodging Tax:
Visit Rainier received a recommendation from Pierce County LTAC for 2011 for $256,000, an increase of $16,000 from 2010. LTAC members voted unanimously for funding the request with one member abstaining. Mary Kay offered to take the concerns of the committee member to the board. After some discussion, the board directed Mkay to draft a letter of response explaining the purpose of Visit Rainier and that many of the concerns about off-season marketing have been addressed over the past five years. There are two open positions on the LTAC. These will be filled by appointment from Roger Bush. Mary Kay requested a copy of the scoring matrix. This will be helpful in preparing future applications.

Lodging Tax vs. Tourism Promotion Area (TPA) funds
In March, Visit Rainier applied for $22,000 from the Pierce County Tourism Promotion Area fund. The request was denied. Mkay explained that these collection amounts can be found on Department of Revenue website: http://dor.wa.gov/content/aboutus/statisticsandreports. In summary: there is a 2% state shared (basic) tax and 2%-5% additional local tax collected depending on number of rooms (25 room threshold). Small lodging properties, vacation rentals, campgrounds, RV campgrounds all collect the second 2%, in addition to the state shared 2%. The Tourism Promotion Area (TPA) (new in 2010) is only collected on those with 40+ rooms. $0.50 per room, per night in Pierce County, $1.50 in Tacoma, $1.00 in Lakewood, and $1.00 in Puyallup. David Wilde is a committee member. Paradise Inn and Crystal Mt. Lodging are the only two properties in our service area which will collect the tax. Tacoma Regional CVB will manage the program.

The 2010 Visit Rainier brochure is now available. 250,000 were printed (an additional 50,000 from past years).The board recommended replacing the rafting photo on the brochure next time. Although rafting is available on the south side, it is not representative of activities inside the park and may cause unmet expectations. There are only a small number of brochures left so there is no need to pull old brochures still in the racks. The board decided to fill the reader service requests that accompany various advertising campaigns.

Community Outreach Specialist Report:
Julie Johnson provided a list of shows and events completed this year and provided feedback. She expressed most were worthwhile. She especially enjoyed the Seattle Concierge group as it was good to connect with those business professionals. Our booth was well received at the recent Romancing the Spouse show in DuPont. Early Registration for the Seattle Travel Show is due July 30th. Mary Kay suggested we invite the NPS to assist us in the booth. The board agreed to pay the deposit for the Seattle Travel Show 2011. Jeremy asked how we might collect more emails than just those that enter our contests. It also was suggested we add a "please forward to friends and family" on our e-newsletters.

Julie attended the Seattle CVB Membership 101 meeting and introduced herself to those in attendance. She felt it was a good networking opportunity.

Mary Kay and Annalee reported on the success of the Sunset Celebration Weekend on June 5-6 in the San Francisco area. The board discussed having a promo item such as a packet of wildflower seeds to hand out as promotional items.

The Sunset show was done cooperatively with Mt. St. Helens, as was the LA Times Show. It was noted while it is good to share expenses, we do not want to lose our identity to the Two Mountain Vacation. Our focus must remain Mt. Rainier-centric.

Partner Update:
Mary Kay reported on the BATIYOBY( Be A Tourist In Your Own Backyard) program and the Visitor Information Center Summit that Tacoma Regional CVB has created. The BATIYOBY program is one we will consider joining next year with the additional funds granted by Pierce County. Mkay also noted that she has been working with Washington State Tourism on the ExperienceWa.com content for the Mt. Rainier area.

2009 - 2010 E-newsletter Report:
Thirteen newsletters have been distributed since 2009. The consumer newsletters now goes to 4388 email addresses with an 18% open rate. The stakeholder newsletters to go about 100-200 email addresses with a 30% open rate.

Social Networking:
Annalee reported that this program began in April 2009. She reported VR now has 1,741 fans on Facebook, 1,490 followers on Twitter and 32 videos on YouTube. The board complimented Annalee on her work and noted they are very pleased with the progress. They encouraged her to incorporate the visitor feedback and testimonials on the website. They suggested she consider a "challenge" such as getting 10,000 people to "like" Mt. Rainier.

Google and Facebook Ads:
These are going well. Facebook Ads have created a strong following on Facebook and have dramatically increased the fan base. Jeremy suggested we watch Bing.com for a future opportunity to purchase CPC online ads.

E-Blasts:
Mary Kay reported that eblasts have been especially effective in driving traffic to the website. i.e. The best day ever recorded on the website was May 26,th when WA State Tourism sent out the Endless Discoveries E-Blast. This year we have 5 shared e-blasts promoting contests to collect email addresses and one exclusive e-blast. We have signed an early contract for the 2011 WSTP which will provide us with four additional e-blasts to 1 million opt-in recipients beginning June 2010.

Contests and Drawings:
The goal is to collect email addresses for our newsletter database. We have created contests on the VR website, on Twitter, and through the eblasts. Drawings from tradeshow booths so far have gathered a total of 1,113 email addresses to date. Prizes consist of RainierBuck certificates. It was suggested we send businesses a letter and sample copy of the RainierBucks certificate.

VisitRainier.com 2.1 Update:
The following is a list provided by Brainkinetics regarding comparison of VR.com 2.0 to 2.1:

Search Engine friendlier
Interactive map "clustering: removed
Lodging admin changed
Database driven administrative use
"Codes" easier, cheaper, faster
jQuery based site... Easier modifications
Contest module improved
Social bookmarking integrated
Image-photo management easier
Ease in adding: maps for hiking, zoomable images, home page slideshows

Marketing:
Mary Kay presented examples of print cooperative advertising completed this year including partners such as: White Pass Scenic Byway, Mt. Rainier Visitor Association, Ashford Events, Destination Packwood, Guest Services, and Alexander's Country Inn.

Online Advertising this year is being done on Sunset.com, ExperienceWa.com and VisitSeattle.org

The Video and DVD Project are nearing completion with the DVD being available on June 20th. There are 7 videos remaining to produce, which will bring us to a total of 20 properties who will have them posted on Visit Rainier.

Mary Kay presented an idea to consider a proposal from George Sharp. George is creating a new business called SharpIdeasUnlimited. He has offered to review our Visit Rainier program and give advice on how we might want to improve our scope of work. George's experience in the field of tourism and business development makes him well qualified to analyze our tourism program. He has offered to develop an analysis "pro bono" in exchange for recommendations to help build his client resume. He will look at a gap analysis of the program, review our approach to media relations and provide opportunities for Visit Rainier's future marketing efforts. Here is his Bio:

• Marketing Manager Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development
• Tourism Development Manager, Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development
• Membership and Marketing Director, Bellingham Chamber of Commerce

MK assured the board there is no obligation or "hidden agenda." If we feel there is something George can do for us, we have that option, but this proposal should be considered as a mutual benefit. The board agreed to have MK and Annalee meet with George to create an action plan. They are interested in seeing how he might be able to address our media relations program and work with Julie Johnson on implementing this in the future.

Next Meeting
October Workshop - Alta Crystal Resort October 27-28