Grand County’s tourism tax collection Room Tax collections reached their fourth-highest level since 2017 in July, County Finance Director Stephen Vowles reported to the Moab Tourism Advisory Board on August 12. Restaurant tax collections also hit a record high for any single month, though recent press coverage reported anecdotal anxiety in the sector.
The returns illustrate the complex relationship between tax collections and business performance. While tax revenue can increase due to higher prices or more establishments, individual businesses may still struggle with fewer customers and reduced spending per visit.
Overall tourism revenue remains 4.3% below last year through July, with Transient Room Tax down 5.9% year-to-date despite July’s strong showing. Restaurant tax bucked the trend, showing an 18.1% increase year-to-date.
Major Marketing Strategy Shifts Approved
The tourism board approved significant changes to Moab’s tourism marketing approach, including a comprehensive rebranding effort and new advertising strategy. Camp Stories, Moab’s new PR agency, is shifting focus from purely adventure-based stories to authentic local narratives featuring business owners, makers, and cultural figures.
Grant Program Restructuring
The board acknowledged that the annual $62,000 special events grant program requires complete restructuring after the county economic development department was dissolved. “We want to go out and bring new events inside of town,” said Grand County Commissioner Brian Martinez, who said that the grants should go to new events rather than funding existing event recipients.
Budget Process Ahead
With budget season approaching, the board will work with Grand County administrators Mark Tyner and Quinn Hall to develop the 2026 budget. The current budget shows significant remaining funds in key categories, with $2.4 million unspent in advertising and $938,000 available for creative services.
It looks like everybody’s got a copy.
She’s trying.
She’s got a sick child.
She’s hidden from red.
All right, let’s get started.
We’ve got the Moab Tourism Advisory Board meeting held today, August 12th at 2 p.m., an adjusted time due to another meeting coming up after.
Would everybody like to go around the room and just introduce themselves briefly?
I’m Howard.
This is Rocky Mountaineer.
Awesome.
I’m Brian Martinez.
I’m the Commission Liaison.
I’m Cora Phillips.
I will be serving in a position for the Chamber.
I serve as the Executive Director.
And just a quick plug, if I may, we have a survey out in the community to find support for businesses for the first week in December.
A little bit louder, sorry.
Oh, certainly.
I’m part of you.
I serve as the Director for the Chamber of Commerce and will be serving in the Chamber position here on out.
So excited to work with you all.
And then just a quick plug, if I may, we have a survey out in the business community.
Typically the Electric Light Parade and the Tree Lighting Ceremony.
And we really think there’s an opportunity to support our business community and invite tourists to the area and help bolster our season.
It’s posted on our Facebook page and sent out to Chamber members.
And then I have a little graphic if you’d like to see that.
Thank you for the people.
Sharon Kinsley with the Margaret Dunn.
Where do I work?
I’m a board member.
Alex Bershefsky, board member.
Rick Saleta, Moab Office of Tourism.
Allie Parker, Moab Office of Tourism.
Wendell Williams, board member.
Lori McFarland, Chairperson and my Vice Chair.
Vice Chair and board member.
Wendell, you have to have the load.
Representing High Point Learning and Moab.
Welcome.
And we’ve got some visitors in the gallery also.
Go ahead and introduce yourself.
I’m Lizzie.
I’m with the TI.
Welcome.
I’m just interested in your resume.
Thank you.
I’m Stephen Biles.
I’m representing the county finance.
Thank you so much.
Oh, thank you very much, Brian.
And if you’re online and would like to introduce yourself, that would be awesome.
Jason Taylor, Moab City Council.
And sorry, I’m not there in person today.
I’m up at National Ability Center up in Park City with my son.
So, summer camp.
You look like you’re in your car.
Thanks for that.
I’m in the parking lot.
That’s a good place to be, Jason.
We’ve got Leslie.
Leslie, go ahead.
Hi, yeah.
I’m Leslie Robal with Madden Media.
I am the senior destination strategy director here.
So, I’m excited to be here.
Awesome.
And I see Campbell Levy also.
Hi, Campbell Levy from Camp Stories.
PR earned media for Moab Office of Tourism.
Awesome.
And Courtney.
Hi, all.
Courtney, how’s some Camp Stories?
Welcome.
Is there anybody that we have neglected or forgotten or ignored?
Awesome.
I know that Rebecca is going to try to jump on in a minute.
She had a very, very sick child, and she was dashing to try to get there for her child.
And she has apologies for not being here in person.
Next, we’d like to offer the opportunity, if anybody would like two minutes for us citizens to be heard.
Welcome to have you speak, if you’d like.
Good.
Thank you so much, y’all.
And, of course, welcome.
Does anybody have a conflict of interest of any items that are on the agenda?
I have a couple extra agendas if you need to look to see if you have any.
I have a couple of disclosures.
So, yeah, previously, and I disclosed these to the commission just for this board.
I wrote on the Canyon Spirit last week just to kind of see how the new route from Salt Lake City to Moab was going to be.
And it was a fantastic experience.
And then also I was on the filming of the Zeus movie as well, which was placed on the Colorado River.
I did have that contract prior to becoming commission, and I don’t have any type of say over who gets the contracts as far as the Moab Film Commission does.
So, if anybody has any questions on that, feel free to reach out to me.
Thank you so much for the full disclosure.
Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead.
The Camp Stories, thank you for getting that Wall Street Journal article.
One of the people that was featured on Paddle Moab is a tenant of a building that I’m partial owner of.
I only found out about the article after they had interviewed them.
So, just by full disclosure, Paddle Moab is a tenant of a building I’m partial owner of.
I don’t know if this, I’ll just disclose it just in case.
The production company with the Zeus used the parking lot and the auditorium for their staging of the filming on Main Street.
We can’t sublease, so we did not lease anything.
How did it go?
Good.
Very, very nice people.
Very good people.
Thank you for having…
Well, the road was going to be closed anyway.
No one could get into our parking lot anyways.
Well, we’re still grateful that you could be so welcoming to a production.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do you have any forms that I need to sign?
We will.
And I want to welcome Cora as the new representative.
She introduced herself already.
We are going to change the order just a little bit.
Instead of having board member reports at the top, we’re going to move the director’s report to the top in courtesy of several people’s time that are participating.
And I’m going to turn the table over to Brian.
And let him run that.
So we’re kind of asking if I would…
I did ask Stephen Vowles to come in.
So, Stephen, if you want to give us a quick update on some of the tax revenues that have been collected.
I know you presented it to the commission, but I think that might be helpful as well.
Yeah, I brought my notes.
Actually, so for the tax collected in July for the actual tax collections in May was a good month.
It was a really good month.
So it’s, you know, we’re still down.
In prior to July, our tax collection was 6% below budget.
So we increased it to 4% below budget.
So we increased 2%.
But I think the highlight was that it was a great month.
Looking at some of the numbers, like TRT was the fourth largest tax collection dating back to start of 2017.
That was a good month.
Sorry, for restaurant, it was the highest month ever for tax collection.
Now, I’m not certain that that says that restaurant had just an incredible month.
But as far as the tax collection reported by the Utah State Tax Commission, it was the best month on record.
How are we doing year over year on that compared to last year?
So for year over year, using 12 months.
Year over year, we’re at minus 5% on TRT, positive 10% on restaurant.
Positive 10% on restaurant.
Yes.
Minus 6% on sales, minus 1% on hospital, minus 11% on carbon.
So everything is down.
So it’s carbon, TRCCA, including UTVs.
Are you combining the carbon?
Yes, I combined the county highway and public transit, short-term leasing, car and OHV in car rental.
So car rental in itself.
So it’s interesting.
Restaurant is up.
I mean, I just would have to assume that people are going up.
There was just a recent article in the Times that said that.
I just wanted to make sure that I was correct.
Yeah.
It said that restaurant was down on top of that.
It is.
Again, year over year and where we’re doing with the Jeep and those combined.
TRCCA for the UTV collections and the Jeep tax.
I don’t know what the question is.
So I didn’t really understand where we are doing year to date with the Jeep rentals year to date and compared year over year.
Does that.
I can look that up.
I didn’t hear any of that in the report.
Good question.
Let me go find X.
I have that in specific.
So I do combine the taxes for my purposes.
Budgeting.
I’m sorry, tight schedule.
I’m trying to make sure that we can all have time.
So as far as that.
I just really want to start off by commending your guys’s office.
I know you guys have been putting in incredible work.
You know, watching what’s happening and you guys are doing a fantastic job.
So I do think that everybody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Great job.
And so you guys kind of.
Provided me with some things that I just, I don’t know if you guys have just kind of filled out a couple of questions and you guys can just kind of answer what’s been happening.
So you guys want to just go over real quick, what’s been happening with the Madden update.
Yeah.
So Madden’s on the call.
They’re going to review on what they’ve been doing since we got started.
But high level we’re developing, reviewing and editing ads, and rolling them out.
Leslie will review some of the numbers, which I find.
Pretty impressive.
We’ve developed a new set of audience profiles.
So just as we were targeting.
With all kinds of demographics.
And then we’ve also developed.
Plan for the airport budget.
So the airport has $25,000 to spend on marketing.
This board is matching that.
And Madden’s developed a plan to review the airport board.
And roll out advertising and some billboard updates.
And then what’s going on with the co-op grant.
The co-op grant was awarded last week.
Thanks to the state.
We were awarded 146,000.
And you’ve been done.
Yeah.
That’s a good thing.
Yeah.
It’s a great thing.
No, I mean, tell them.
In perspective.
It was the second highest.
Yeah.
182.
Yeah.
The slides are in.
The materials that are part of the board packet.
Then Frederick will put together this plan with Madden.
So it was Madden’s first time.
And Allie and I went up to the state.
For the interview.
So we interviewed.
So that he went up and back in one day.
Okay.
Just to give credit where credit is due.
Mick went up there.
At the interview and came back on the same day.
But it was a great result.
The music festival also got $24,000.
The museum got $3,000.
So we can add that to the total for Moab.
And I just think in the future, we can just continue to work.
With the state understand more about this grant.
Yeah.
And, you know, I’m a competitive person and I want to get the top.
So.
You know, we both really like working with the state across all of their verticals and.
We just want to lean into that relationship.
Perfect.
Including this grant.
And then anything just like talk about the website.
Website updates continue.
Businesses can email me.
To add photos and descriptions to their business profiles.
We’re continuing to make.
Content updates.
And I just want to.
Remind everyone that this was contra content migration.
So it was a technology upgrade.
So it looks shiny and new, but a lot of the content we’ve inherited from a long time.
So we’ll talk a little bit about the branding project later, but a part of the branding project is to reassess.
How we use the website, the messaging on the website and update that.
So we’ll talk a little bit about that.
There’s a lot of really good information on there.
We don’t want to lose it, but.
We’re probably going to shift.
The content focus in the future.
Do you want to talk a little bit about the brochure distribution?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we generate leads through the website.
On discover more people can request a travel planner.
And we also work with go Utah.
To generate leads.
And so we send those out to businesses when people.
Like, like, yes, I want to know more about operating.
And we’ve also sent them to.
Slash.
Can you add to advertising and they.
Mail all of those out.
So they’re distributing travel planners to people who ask for them.
And then we’re also distributing outdoor adventure guides.
So, yeah.
So, yeah.
That’s in town.
Originally.
The outside road, less even episode.
The marketing that’s happening.
Yeah, sure.
So the road.
Let’s even episode is live.
This was a part of last year’s.
So the outside.
He came out and shot this episode as part of their editorial team and process.
But it’s live and it comes as they promote it.
There are.
And then we also have.
Some teasers.
But also some ad opportunities.
So Madden developed some, some ads in our brand ad campaign and it’s running on the outside website.
In addition to some newsletters.
So that’s up and running.
I mean, just a couple more things that the best of tree.
Oh, yeah.
You’ll hear about that from the PR agency.
But we’re trying to do an activation then.
So.
I can tease to it.
Yeah.
But we want to do something like holiday themed.
And encourage people to come visit during the holidays.
So we’re thinking of lighting up like a Indian pine tree.
And maybe a recommendation might be to have Cora.
From the chamber.
Involved.
Like that and get her looped into it.
The chamber is working on some stuff for the holidays.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
And then last is the mud springs.
Trail system.
So I’m going to go over that real quick.
If you could just tell me.
What’s kind of happening with that.
Yeah.
So the mud springs trail system is going to open in mid November.
But it only opens for like two weeks and then it closes again for elk migration.
And so.
The trail team is interested in like figuring out a way to get the news out that we have this new trail system, but not cause a flood of people to come try to ride it in December when it’s closed.
So we were thinking of doing like a specific event.
Like a ribbon cutting or something similar to that, to encourage people to check it out.
And I was thinking like, maybe we could get some bike influencers to come down and like ride at first almost.
And then we can generate all this buzz, like come back again in April.
Yeah.
I think that’s a good idea.
I have the big scissors.
You let me know.
Might be as well as you might want to invite some of the champions or winners from the NICA races.
Yes.
And see if they want to come down and ride the course.
Yeah.
Just.
Just throw that out there.
I mean, we’ve got such a great high school.
We’ve got such a great high school team.
That would be a really good asset.
To have them try it out and be the youth kind of element of it.
Like, you know, that way.
Yeah.
You know, When I do the hardest best things.
Perfect.
That covers us.
Awesome.
Thank you guys.
Okay.
We often have our board member reports at the end, but if everybody will limit themselves to just a quick minute.
My report is I’m just working hard.
Trying to welcome every human.
In our door and say, thank you for coming.
That’s my report from.
For the July and August oppressive.
Slow.
Go ahead.
Canon spirit.
We had a test run for the salt lake route, which will be next year.
On board the train.
When Brian and bill came back on was the world’s press.
Who came through Moab for the evening.
So a nice bit of PR.
There’s already some press releases coming out from that traveler and leisure.
So that is happening next year.
The hope is that Moab will become a.
Instead of being an end point, it will be a midpoint and end points.
So we may benefit from.
Overnight visitors from Salt Lake going to Denver.
But we’ll also have two day travelers that will just do the Moab Denver route.
So.
The goal is to have 25,000 visitors a year on the train, which when you consider how many hotel room nights that brings to our community, meals, et cetera, it’s a pretty valuable product.
So I, I hope that our body can work together with Rocky mountain air to.
Maybe when they launch in 2026.
You have to have a welcoming committee for them, both at Thompson.
Which would be the salt lake.
That’s where the train will go because there’s no left turn at present junction.
But also that first route coming in from Denver with Canyon spirit to maybe welcome at seven miles.
So an opportunity to bring Thompson.
And seven mile next year.
That’s it.
Well, I mentioned our survey during my introduction.
So please check that out or circle back with me.
We have our.
Business meetup with the who do on August 21st.
With our chamber members.
And then we partnered with Steve Simons with Parsons.
And then we partnered with the city of Davis.
For navigating the impacts of the big beautiful.
Whether those are that sort of.
I already told you about the production company.
Parking lot in auditorium.
It was actually a lot of fun.
I was there at 5.00 AM.
That morning.
Great.
Great people.
Anyone that I dealt with.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun.
As far as visitation.
Arches through June inside the BC is up three and a half percent.
And the gate was up one and a half percent.
The Mick through July.
The reason I’ll have June then is because.
Or July Denver arches is because I was gone last week.
And I didn’t get out there yesterday or today.
The Mick through July visitation is actually at 11%.
And.
August 1st.
So we’re still getting quite a few people coming in the door.
There.
Hopefully we’ll.
Sending them.
Places.
We had quite a few people doing asking about river trips today.
I know.
I know.
So, you know, we’ll suggesting morning.
So.
And a lot of, I mean, we’ve been sending people for summers.
And side-by-sides too.
I don’t know.
You know, I.
We can always suggest to them.
I don’t know where they go.
So.
We’ll just embrace them.
Okay.
So that your visitation numbers are up.
At the park.
Yes.
For the month of July is that compared to last year or.
The last year.
Yeah.
That’s a reservation system in place last year.
July.
Yes.
Reservation system was.
Last year.
Or in July and August.
So this is no reservations against those patients.
Okay.
In this station.
Cool.
Awesome.
Currently both restaurants are closed for summer vacation.
July.
Was.
Wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be for revenues.
Yeah.
It was still really like hit and miss days.
Down by.
Up here.
Way down here.
Throughout the week.
So.
Kind of really hard to plan for that, but.
We’ll take the busy when we get it.
And.
Overall, like I said, 98.
The past meeting.
98 We’re still up.
Yeah.
So just so about flat for the year, but.
This.
All over.
Some more.
Folks and.
We try a little more like social media.
At 98.
We’ll see.
I’ve got some.
Social media.
We’ll see how that goes for the fall season.
As a professional situation.
And.
Yeah, that’s about it.
We’re on vacation.
Looking forward to the fall.
Let’s sunset.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Sunset grill.
Similar.
Brian.
Yeah.
Like I’ve seen a lot of weekend spikes.
So I think we’re getting a lot more.
Weekend travelers than we have been in the past.
The weekdays have been a little slower weekdays.
We’ve seen a bit of spikes.
I’m saying a lot more.
Kind of.
We can travelers and.
Seem to be a lot more international tourists this year than last year.
It’s very bizarre.
I mean, I’m talking about this tourism being done internationally.
A lot more international tourists this year than last.
Yeah.
That’s just.
That’s just an observation.
It’s not.
This is anecdotal.
This is not.
Like a fact.
You’re saying my experiences.
We’ve seen a lot more this year than last.
Jason, any comments?
No, not really.
From the city’s point of view, city’s just plugging along.
We’re still working on sidewalks.
You know, and trying to get.
We’re still trying to get sidewalks fixed on main street.
Really trying to push getting sidewalks fixed on main street.
And we’ve kind of had to go back to the drawing board.
We’ve been putting this bid out.
To.
Asked for contractors to bid on it or, you know, whatever.
And we’ve gotten zero.
So we’re, I think.
We’re going to have to wait and see.
Michael black and was.
Going to sit down with call contractors personally and see what could be done to make it more enticing or what needed to be done.
To start getting sidewalks repaired on main street.
So that’s.
At the top of the list.
Remember he’s working on it.
And that, so anyway.
There you go.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anyone that would like to have items in consideration for future agenda items.
Can you please email those just so that we don’t get rabbit hole here today.
If you have items, I would love to.
Collaborate so we can get those items on.
Or if you are, there are some people that want to have some ideas for workshops, but we’re kind of running late in the year.
So we want to make sure that we’re all on the same page.
I would love to have somebody make a motion for approval of the.
To have minutes for June 10th.
And if you need to see him, I.
Make a motion to approve.
And secondly, running tests.
Anybody opposed.
I guess I’ll abstain since I.
Okay.
I think that.
There you were never not a voting member.
So.
All right, everybody who will vote to approve those.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay.
And now we get to have an update from Madden media.
Who’s going to direct the music.
I’ll kick things off, but Leslie’s online and she’ll get the presentation.
But I just wanted to start by saying thank you to Leslie, the Madden team.
They’ve been onboarding.
Since the spring.
And it’s been really, really great.
The team came out in the spring.
And did an in-market visit.
And then we’ve been working.
We meet with them weekly.
I also want to thank, thank the board for empowering this office to make this, this decision.
It was, it’s been really, really great.
And there’s a lot of energy and we feel like we have a lot of support.
And Leslie’s going to review a lot of that.
But just from my perspective.
I feel like we get three or four people from the Madden team in every function that we have previously.
So an admin.
Leslie has a team of three creative data and media buying.
We just feel a lot more supportive.
So I wanted to report back to the board on that.
And I’m most excited about the staff in the deck that she’ll review.
That we put out 160 ads.
If you were, if you are more than 160.
So if you review what we’ve done in years previous, I don’t think we were anywhere close to that.
Maybe.
Few variations on one ad.
But they’re really targeting different groups, different messaging.
And they just have the capacity to track what’s working and change.
So we meet with them weekly on Wednesdays.
And then we were on email and have.
Ad hoc meetings throughout the week.
But just wanted to give that.
Report back to the board and hand it over to Leslie.
Who’s going to go through her deck.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Thanks, Nick.
I’m so excited to be here and show you guys some of the things we’ve been working on.
Just like Nick said, there has been a lot going on.
A lot of deliverables, a lot of back and forth, a lot of really great input from members of this board.
So just to kick things off and put things at a high level.
So a little bit of a reminder.
So it was made when we started to work together.
And how that really starts is us identifying our key business objectives.
So those key business objectives are meant to go somewhat above and beyond those key performance indicators.
So we want to make sure we’re not just thinking about what we want to do from a marketing standpoint.
But we want to think about what you as Moab need to do from an organizational standpoint.
So together, we really defined those key objectives as making sure that we were evolving the existing Moab brand.
Wanted to ensure that that felt welcoming, that it felt warm for visitors.
Focus on increasing visitation, increasing that length of stay.
We also know how important.
Yeah.
Leslie.
We can’t see your slides.
Oh, no.
Here we go.
It’s so great to see your face and nothing else.
Well, it is actually.
All right.
Perfect.
Do you see beautiful colors now?
No.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Thumbs up.
Okay.
Yes.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
So continue on those key business objectives.
So I wanted to focus on appealing to shoulder season as well.
But we really want to think about the entire system.
So it’s who are we targeting?
What is the creative that we’re showing that matches their needs, that matches their values?
And then making sure that they’re really landing on the right page on the website to be engaged, to convert.
So convert on the website can be maybe they’re getting more information around a guide.
Maybe they’re going from your website to a partner website.
So we really wanted to set what are those main objectives.
It’s very easy for us to get focused on click through rates and impressions.
So it’s very important that we take a step back to define those larger goals.
So in June, which feels like maybe it was yesterday and a year ago at the same time, we worked together to define that media plan.
So our media plan, as a reminder, is $2 million.
And how that breaks up and how that shakes out is we have around 250,000 that fall within what we call performance driven efforts.
So those are kind of those tried and true efforts.
So that’s when we’re talking about Google.
We’re talking about Meta in that Instagram place.
We’re talking about kind of that foundational media that we really build upon.
From there, we focused on travel endemic.
That’s really those levels or those areas of the media plan that are focusing on those traveler places.
And then lastly, we had a very large investment into OTAs, into content and into that international plan.
So just a little bit of a high level reminder of what that looks like with a lot of these campaigns launching in June all the way through this month.
So within that, we have noted here that there are 22 different channels that we’re focused on.
I feel like our creative team would love to tell you that means one ad per channel, and it most certainly does not.
So within that, this is to date when we worked on this a couple weeks ago, but we have more than 160 ads that we have created together.
Now that’s probably more like 180 plus.
And so while numbers are wonderful, what that really means is, again, we want to make sure that we’re connecting the right creative with the right audience at the right time.
So that is why you were seeing perhaps more creative than what you have seen in the past.
If we are putting that emphasis into making sure that we’re representing Moab and the community, we want to make sure that we’re doing that in the right way and we’re being really responsible with those dollars.
So the places that that media is being placed, again, is Google.
So that’s your paid search.
That’s where you’re seeing things when you’re getting on Google, trying to find things.
YouTube, additional meta and Google spots.
And then that’s where we’re getting into Expedia.
We’re getting into some of these different placements that also provide a lot of information for us to be able to update, be able to iterate and then also have some really great conversion and other metrics to to support.
So very high level what we’ve been focused on.
And then just a little bit of a reminder of who Madden is.
So Madden, we’ve been working in the travel and tourism industry for almost for just a little bit over 40 years.
And right now we have over 200 DMO partners that we work with.
One thing we try to do that separates us just a little bit from from some other agencies, is we really try to hire and work with people who have been in mixed shoes, who have been in alley shoes and have worked in that destination marketing environment.
So with that, our team, it’s a great balance between feeling like you have an extension of your team, but then also having some heavy hitters and experts that you can tap into.
So you guys are lovingly a part of Team GOAT, greatest of all time.
Of course, we’ll do that little reminder there.
But what that means is there’s about 27 people on our team.
And so those are the people who are working on your account day in and day out or getting to know you, getting to know your brand, getting to know the market itself, getting to know your visitors.
But then at any time, we have this full stack of team members across the organization that we can tap into that focus, maybe a little bit more on international or maybe they focus a little bit more on a different type of visitor.
So love that we have that balance of what feels like an extension of your team, as well as resources that we can tap into.
With that, our team really focuses on that mountain area.
So some of those key clients we’re working with is the state of Idaho, where the agency of record for them.
We work with Wyoming and quite a few of their partners within the state.
We’ve also started working more actively with Central Oregon, which is a regional DMO versus any kind of county or city, Grand County, Colorado.
Thank goodness you guys are the Moab Office of Tourism or that would be quite confusing for our team.
And then we also work with Visit Bozeman.
So just a little bit of a snapshot of some of those different some of the friends you have playing in the GOAT sandbox.
So wanting to transition there to talk a little bit more about the creative strategy that we have employed with this and very, very excited about this.
So just as it says here, you know, we do we believe that creative doesn’t start with style.
It starts with substance.
We’ve talked so much in the past about the research that we’ve done.
And that’s because we want to make sure that that messaging and we’re replacing those ads really connect with this with the consumer.
So every decision we make is really rooted in that strategy shaped by your brand story, guided by those goals that we talked about and informed by consumer insights.
So this means that we’re really working to make sure we listen.
Right.
You guys and your board are the experts in the destination.
We want to make sure we’re actively communicating and collaborating and that the creative really speaks to those things that we’re hearing from you and the consumer.
So with that, we want to make sure that those concepts are emotionally compelling, that they are behaviorally smart, again, trying to understand that consumer and that they’re built to move the needle and make sure that we are getting that travel, that we are getting that traveler in market.
So what does that mean?
We’ve really leaned in with this campaign, knowing that you guys are working on developing a larger brand.
What is that step forward?
That is building off a lot of what the team has done previously this year, but also making sure that we’re differentiating ourselves in the market.
So we’ve really leaned into this idea of the edge and I can read this whole thing.
But at the beginning, I also feel like it’s it encapsulates that pretty well.
Every traveler has an edge and Moab you find yours.
So some of the things that we heard from this team is, of course, you have this adventure piece, you have this living on the edge, but you also have this quirkiness.
You have this personality, right?
So we wanted to make sure that what we were doing with the creative really connected with that and connected with what we were hearing from you.
So the edge isn’t the end of the road in Moab.
It’s where the real journey starts.
This is a shift and it starts when you step into the edge.
So this is just reinforcing why why this concept continues to really push forward a lot of the goals that we have set forward.
So I know we’ve talked a little bit about goals before, but then transitioning here, I really want to get into the creative.
So how we start this is starting to talk with the team about what are some of those headlines that we feel like really connects to the consumer?
And then where does that kind of sit with who we’re targeting?
So love that there is definitely some kind of thoughtful, beautiful, creative that goes with this.
So some of these headlines between a rock and a real place.
Here, quiet feels louder.
Moab, the limit does not exist.
Find yourself right where it all falls away.
This is the edge.
Now begin.
Every trail leads somewhere new, especially within.
So tapping in again to that emotional, that personal emotional connection.
Stillness hits hard here.
The trail goes inward.
Find yourself where the rock breaks open.
The land doesn’t move.
You do.
Let’s think you might just one second.
I think that that might be just a spot that this board might want to just weigh in a little bit.
OK, perfect.
Just maybe allow for that’s OK with you.
Maybe just 30 seconds or a minute.
Just folks to kind of see what you guys think and just put on.
I certainly think the emotional attachment or representation is really big.
I think that’s what really draws a lot of people here that keeps people here and keeps them going back.
So finding ways to latch on to people’s emotions is always the best way to bring it back.
Right.
We started this in May and I don’t know how much exposure the board has had to all this.
We keep sending decks and this and that.
If you need to dive into anything deeper, we’ve asked Leslie to keep it at a higher level so that we don’t get in the weeds here.
But if there’s any additional creative that you want to look at, please offer your input.
And Leslie, I know we’re all super open to trying to move this, push this ball up the hill.
I just wanted to make sure that we stop for just a second.
It seems like it’s something that’s really important.
It’s something that people have wanted to make sure that they put on in the past.
And so I don’t know if you want to either, you know, look over these and send an email.
But I think that this is something that we want to pay attention to and make sure that this all feels right.
Right, more than anything else.
They always feel right.
They feel like they’re the truth that we want to put down.
I did notice there were some other sample headlines that were provided in the other presentations.
Are those going to be worked in or?
Sorry, I was going to…
Oh, Leslie, do you want to answer?
Yeah, so this is definitely just a sample of those headlines.
So there’s more headlines that we’re using.
This is kind of a jumping off point where other headlines still try to build off that emotion or duplicate that emotion.
But there is a little bit of variation and some of that is specific to characters or the vibe.
But this is really the foundation we’re jumping off of.
Thanks, Leslie.
Rebecca looks like she’s chimed in here.
She says, I have a lot of background noise.
So not on the mic, but fantastic job on these sample headlines.
I think these headlines truly carry emotion.
And that’s 100% what we need to show that Moab is not just a path through city.
It’s the destination.
There you go.
Echoing Alex.
Thank you, Rebecca.
I know you have a crying child.
Yeah, and then just real quick, real quick, just my little thought is that I think that you guys are doing a great job.
I feel like you guys are on the right path.
And I think that this idea that you’re sparking curiosity definitely is something that I’m interested in.
Leslie, I think that’s everything from the room if you want to continue.
Just keeping in mind that we’re…
the time.
Okay, perfect.
So we just wanted to provide a little bit of a sampling for what that creative looks like.
If you want to see those 160, 180 examples, I would love to send them your way.
But just wanted to kind of start.
So where we start really is kind of this like stylistic beginning where it’s okay, if we have full bleeds, if we have all this space, what does that look like?
So this is an execution that includes, you know, again, a sampling of those headlines.
But out here, the quiet is loud.
Love how this also kind of brings in and gets you a feel for the topography.
And then from there, another example.
So the limit does not exist, bringing in a little bit more of kind of the CTA or calling out the website.
Again, this is where we start.
And then you see some of these get a little bit more specific.
The trail goes inwards.
You can see we really, we want that text to feel like it has a life, right?
We don’t want to take away from the imagery.
But we also wanted to make sure that within what you’re seeing, you’re seeing yourself within the destination, right?
It’s lovely to see landscapes.
We want to make sure we’re making that personal connection with the landscape, whether that is through imagery, whether that’s through text, or whether that is through bold.
And here are some additional kind of creative pieces that are specifically tied to the bye.
I will try to play this.
I know sometimes that doesn’t always work well over Zoom, but this is showing the 30-second spot that we have been utilizing.
There’s music.
Also notice we review these, that they’re working with a lot of existing assets.
So we didn’t have an expensive photo shoot.
They’re developing the content and messaging since May, and they’re really relying on the photos that we have access to.
So I think if people spend time with our previous ads, and you can see these, they’ve done a really fantastic job aligning their strategy with the existing assets.
And as we move forward, that’s something that we can do even better.
We’re going out and shooting our own creative.
We’ll have a lot more control over what we’re seeing.
Does the office have a library of shots that we can give them to, that are proprietary, belong to us?
Yes.
Yeah, Allie’s been organizing that and combing through what our rights are to things and what we can use.
So we do now, thanks to Allie, and we’re building that.
But they have access to all of our assets.
You want to continue, Leslie?
Yes.
So this is an example of one of our buys.
So Tiki is a buy that we’re using that not only focuses on kind of connecting some of that content, but another thing that Tiki does really well is it helps understand exactly what the user is interested in.
So a part of this buy is a chat feature that rolls out where you can ask information about Moab.
Not only can you ask information, but we get a summary of the different things that people are looking at and are interested in.
So here, making sure that we’re not just thinking about the headlines, but we’re also thinking about the imagery that goes with it.
So roam the red rock, the Moab trails, desert done right.
So really wanted to bring you guys today some of that kind of, those ones that really did feel like it evoked an emotion and was taking up a little bit more space in doing so.
Again, this is an example of how some of these ads are showing up.
I’m giving a couple examples here.
What you’ll also see here is we talk a lot about what is the CTA, what’s the call to action based on where they are within their own planning.
So you’ll often see us saying explore Moab or find more, find your Moab.
And that’s really when we’re talking about those people who are still really in that inspiration phase.
They’re just getting to know you.
Whereas we get a little bit further down, we might see stronger calls to action.
We might see book now, we might see click, you know, that’s where we’re going to see a harder push for us to convert that user.
Find your adventure starts here.
Find yourself where it all falls away.
Love the integration here.
And again, these are the assets the team already has.
Love the integration here of being able to see in the rear view mirror.
Just again, something that can catch their eye, something that’s a little bit different.
Where the desert meets the sky, elevate your next adventure.
So again, you’re seeing people, you’re seeing that landscape really come alive and people being able to really feel what it would be like to be in the destination.
Add some color to your camera roll.
So as we talked earlier about some of those different audiences, we do see the photographer.
We do see some pieces in here that feel like a little bit more of a niche audience.
Meaning, no, that’s not where we’re putting the majority of the spend.
That’s not where we’re putting the majority of our efforts.
But we want to make sure that we’re thinking about those other audiences that really can connect to the destination.
And I think when you think about the photographer, when you think about the storytellers, right, that gives us an opportunity to have them tell some of your story, not just what we have in the buy.
Some great digital out of home.
Moab moves you.
Again, I feel like this image here almost kind of jumps at you with the way that the sky is behind it.
The limit does not exist.
Push your edge.
Again, begin the journey.
These are all very awareness, inspiration focused.
Here is where we’re getting more to your.
Yes, we have a question.
Can you say real quick how you’re tracking the conversion rate?
Oh, yes.
So, yes, it depends on the buy.
And so, so when we get to the OTAs, for example, with Expedia, how it works with them is you get very specific reporting that says, hey, you clicked on this ad you booked.
This is our return on ad spend.
So some of these buys, for example, this Epsilon, we’re going to get very specific data that says what their return on ad spend was.
Some of these other ones we’re more looking at.
So if we’re thinking about awareness, maybe we’re looking at engagement on the site or we’re looking at what was their time on the site.
So really where we look to find more of that information is more along kind of that call it travel endemic or strategic investments where we can make that strong tie to they saw the ad they showed up in market or they saw the ad and they booked travel.
So it kind of depends on tactic.
Thank you.
And then just kind of continuing here, we have the OTA buy showing how these kind of look within those different sizes that are given through these buys.
And then this is where you’re seeing those meta ads.
So, well, I think sometimes often people are kind of tired of social media.
I’m a little bit tired of meta.
But we see such great click through rates, meaning we’re seeing so many people engage with these ads, click on them and do really solid traffic to your website.
So important to think about that whole mix.
We want to make sure that we’re keeping them, keeping their attention.
But we also want to make sure we’re finding the right places to get them to go to the site and to learn.
Also, the positive feedback that we’re getting on these ads on social.
So I’ve noticed a lot of positive feedback.
Yeah, we’re excited about them.
And then again, I think what you’re seeing here, too, and hopefully what you’re seeing and why we wanted to show so many of the creative is you’re seeing these come to life and these different shapes and these different forms.
You’re seeing us being able to tell a different story and connect to a different audience here, which I think is this is a really good example of that within one buy.
So a zero is our straight kind of display programmatic stillness hits hard to every traveler has an edge.
Find yours.
And this is the last one we’re showing, but this is a little bit more of some of these buys feel very one to one, right?
You’re purchasing banner ads.
You’re you’re doing something along those lines, but a lot of them are a little bit more custom where they have more content.
Right.
So not only are we trying to push the ads you’re seeing here, but we’re trying to bring content to them.
So just a lot of kind of neat opportunities.
We’ll have more reporting to share with you guys the next time we meet.
So I’m excited to be able to share that.
But any thoughts or feedback, anything you guys want to bring up?
It’s great.
Thank you so much for taking such good care of us.
We’re so excited.
This is, you know, representing Moab has been such a hard job for us.
Thank you for making it so easy.
Thank you also for taking part in the branding session as well for being part of that, because I know that you’re already working with Camp Stories can be important for all of all three of you to be working together.
And so far, the relationship is going great.
And I look forward to, you know, this next step.
Yeah, definitely.
We do too.
Leslie, you’re welcome to stay with us, but don’t feel obligated.
We’re just going to go through a bunch of administrative things and Camp Stories will be introducing themselves next if you are at a stopping point.
Oh, Leslie, you’re muted.
I think you’re muted.
Are you still seeing my screen?
Yes.
Okay, well, let’s see if I can get that to go away.
The contour is actually on the next.
It’s on the end of attachment.
Oh, you know what?
You can’t leave yet.
We’re just going to introduce Camp Stories and then we’re going to go to the contour piece.
Apologies.
No, I just.
In relation to presenting that.
Okay.
Hang in here for just a second.
Thanks.
All right, moving on to the next.
Obviously, guys, Madden is a critical piece of the advertising budget.
And so if you have additional questions, comments, please send them our way.
Next item, we’re going to introduce Camp Stories, our public relations agency with a brief update.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so we’ve been working with Camp Stories since like early June, I think.
And they’re awesome.
This is really exciting.
I don’t believe our department has ever had a PR agency before.
And so it’s really wonderful to see what kind of sway we can have in the journalism media world.
And people are really excited to work with Camp Stories.
So yeah, go ahead, Campbell.
Thank you.
It’s great to meet everybody.
I know we’ve met some of you.
I’m Campbell.
We’re Camp Stories.
Everything we do is really predicated around deep emotional connection to the places that we choose to represent.
We’re very picky.
Like Madden had mentioned, we’re thrilled, obviously, to represent Moab.
Our history personally goes way back in Moab as well.
I’ve been camping with my dad was the initial time that I was introduced to Moab in the late 80s.
And we’ve kind of grown up with the destination with my dad and then as broke college kids and then now as families coming.
And so we’ve seen a lot of different iterations of Moab as well.
We specialize in travel, hospitality, tourism, outdoor brands, kind of at every level.
At the continent level, we’ve worked with Tourism Australia and Bermuda.
We worked with a lot of outdoor brands as well, REI, Leatherman.
We like to think we come from an authentic place.
I think some people know this about me, but some don’t.
I’m a former in a former life, I should say, a backcountry guide, a Knowles graduate.
I was a professional cyclist for a number of years, a mountain biker and a cyclocross racer.
And we really try to bring that authenticity with us to how we tell stories.
Court, you’re on mute.
Hi, everyone.
Courtney Halsom with Camp Stories.
So I have a deep background in advertising, connected, integrated campaign planning.
And I have worked on many big and small brands from Aspen to Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Ford, Louis Vuitton, Hennessy for years.
I led the Starbucks business for six years, working on some of their campaigns.
And really where the magic happens for me is how do you find the authentic spirit of a place, of a brand, of a story?
And how do you unlock that and project that into the world in the right way?
And I think that’s where we really excel at Camp Stories in finding those deep rooted, amazing stories and uncovering those tales.
And we’re going to talk a little bit about how we approach that.
And that really is all about character first, story first.
And just to echo Campbell’s comments, couldn’t be more thrilled to be working on the Moab business.
We’re having so much fun so far and more and the best stuff is yet to come.
We also have on our team that are not on the call today, Lindsay Hall, who is based in, well, Texas, but also van life.
You might find her just cruising around in her van and you never might know where she is.
She works from the road and she’ll be meeting us in Moab in a few months.
And we’re also excited to welcome to the team, Jenica Villamore, who started yesterday, actually.
She’s a media relations supervisor.
She has a background in broadcast and storytelling.
And she’s going to be a wonderful addition to the team.
She’s based out in Portland, Oregon, and we’re excited to get her out to Moab very soon.
All right.
So we wanted to jump really quickly into I know we only have like 10, 15 minutes.
So we’re going to try to breeze through a lot of content.
Strategic approach wise, we want to give you just a quick refresh on what we’ve been working on.
This is not all of it.
This is a consolidated version since we have just a few slides to share.
We’re going to talk a little bit about what we’ve been doing with earned media, the conversations that we’ve been having, how we’re pitching Moab, what those stories look like, goal setting.
And then we want to talk a little bit more about the activations that Ali teased a little bit earlier.
So I’m going to kick it off with PR goals.
So our PR strategy really is designed to fuel Moab’s year round economy.
That means boosting summer and winter visitation specifically.
We already know we’re all right in the spring and the fall.
Right.
So how can we elevate in the summer and the winter while helping the destination meet its goal of a 6 percent increase in transient room tax revenue?
What does that mean and what do we highlight?
Accessible adventure is one.
Right.
There’s something for everyone.
That’s flip flops to hiking boots.
That’s people with limited accessibility issues.
Moab has something for everyone.
And we’re telling a lot of stories in a lot of different ways so that we can unlock that.
Also increasing visitation frequency.
There’s so much to do.
So come back and try something new next time.
Increasing length of stay.
Stay longer to experience more.
And then going really deep into art, culture, culinary and history.
I teased this a little bit earlier, but again, talking about unlocking the soul and the spirit of a place.
A place is really all about the people that make it magical.
Right.
So it’s all about those characters that the real people behind the scenes, behind the businesses, propelling the community, the people that make up the community.
So Campbell’s going to talk a little bit about our character first philosophy.
Yeah, it’s something that obviously is unique to each place.
And we’ve had some incredible interviews with folks already.
And it’s funny, as we’ve gotten stories in the media, we’ve had more people reach out proactively.
We had originally planned to do about one of these a month, but we’re probably we’re doing a lot more of them than that, which is great.
It’s netted us incredible storytelling opportunities.
It also doubles is media training for us.
And so as we’re interviewing these folks, it allows us to identify who is going to be great in front of the camera.
And maybe somebody who might not be as good in front of the camera, which is fine and would be better for written word or for podcast.
And so we are developing what we call a living pitch document.
And it’s just an ongoing sort of story board that we’ve created.
You can see some of the folks that we’ve connected with already and how those have already netted some great stories.
Just Cirx from Paddle Moab was fascinating.
A small business owner in town who has kind of put his entire life on the line to buy permits to run the river.
For some of these people, that means mortgaging their house to buy these things.
And they’ve invested a lot.
We take great honor in telling their stories and doing justice to their stories as well and doing it right.
That’s very important to us as well.
Rebecca McAllister, obviously everybody knows she’s incredible.
She has been a conduit to so many other people in the destination.
She’s amazing.
We’re really looking forward to everything that she has in store at the press as well.
We’re using that for some of our ongoing outreach, which we’ll go into in a minute.
Faith Dickey also Courtney had mentioned accessible adventure.
I don’t know how many people on the board know this, but she is doing a bunch of extreme disabled adventure, which, yes, evidently is a thing.
She’s taking some people that have spinal cord injuries and she’s taking them out thousands of feet above the valley floor and explaining that she lets these people lead in terms of their disability.
And so every single situation is different as she’s bringing these people out.
We actually confirmed a big out a far magazine story on her and on this.
I don’t even think she knows that yet.
But directly from that interview that we had with her, Cassandra also opening Desert Tropics Health Bar.
That’s also opening in September.
And so we’ve seen this sort of flood of new things opening toward the end of the year.
And then upcoming Aaron and Ryan Byrd and then the Film Commission as well, which I’ll talk a little bit more about in a second.
Yeah.
And that’s just who we’ve been able to speak with so far.
You know, the list is growing and we’ll be building as we go and adding on so that we can continue to have that infinite cycle of stories to be able to always be pitching.
Yes.
So this by no means entails everything that we’re pitching, but it’s some of the things that we’re going out with.
I think something to that’s important to understand in terms of how earned media works is things happen well in advance for the most part.
The Wall Street Journal story, which was somebody alluded to earlier, was kind of an outlier.
It’s pretty rare that we get a big story like that that comes together in three to four weeks.
A lot of times we’re working many months in advance.
And so, like, I had a call with voters this morning who’s working on their where to go list.
I had a call with Bloomberg last week, Conde Nast Traveler.
They’re all working on their January stories right now.
And so we have an eye toward the really long lead stuff.
That’s where to go in 2026.
Typically, those are pegged on big news hooks, new reasons to visit a destination you might know or a destination that you formerly associated with something.
It’s interesting perception of Moab when we’ve reached out to a lot of journalists is that, you know, I haven’t been there in the past because I’m not a camper or I’m not a hardcore adventure.
And that’s we would much rather there be a perception that exists than none at all.
We love to take perception and kind of turn it on its head or create sort of a new fold to it.
And so that’s been really fun.
We pitched, obviously, the development of hotels.
We’re also pitching a big female led Renaissance of makers right now.
There are tons of incredible female business owners in Moab.
That’s been a story that journalists have been very interested in as well.
Adventure and accessibility.
I’d mentioned Faith Dickey as well.
I think this idea that you don’t have to be a rock climber.
You don’t have to be a backpacker.
You can go out on these incredible UTV tours.
We have somebody coming in September from Portland.
His name is Winston Ross, who writes for Overland Journal.
And so making sure that we’re being really holistic in terms of how we’re telling stories and making sure also that the people that we’re bringing identify similarly to the people who are telling these stories.
If we’re telling an indigenous story about indigenous groups and arches, we have an indigenous media list as well that we’re utilizing.
We feel like stories are so much stronger when the storyteller is deeply identifying with the people who they’re writing stories about film tourism.
I’ve heard come up quite a bit.
You know, what’s interesting is the oldest film commission in the world.
We feel like we have a lot of runway in film tourism.
There are tons of stories to tell there.
And a lot of the people who we’ve gone out to about these stories had no idea how many things had been filmed in Moab.
And so I think that’s a fun one that we’ll get tons of stories around as well.
And then obviously road trips, but the idea that we want people to really settle down in Moab and stay there for a few days.
A really key component of how we do that is making sure that we’re going into itinerary stories.
But instead of a stop on your road trip itinerary, it’s really key that we’re telling two, three, four day stories in Moab.
And the idea that you’re not going to run out of things to do in this place that helps people stay for a while as well.
I think it will also help with seasonality.
We had alluded to this a little bit earlier.
Hopefully everybody saw this.
This was great.
We were able to interview a bunch of different stakeholders, partners, business owners in Moab.
This is exactly what we wanted to focus on was making sure people knew that the seasonality that currently exists in Moab no longer is relevant.
There’s hotels to stay in.
It may be too hot to camp in the summer, but there’s incredible hotels to stay in.
You can cool off in the river.
We’ve also painted this picture of nocturism among outfitters.
It’s worked out really well here.
It’s rare, but sometimes we write a pitch where the headline ends up as the headline in the paper.
This was exactly that, and so we were thrilled about this.
Good job.
Some of the people who were included in that were Karen from National Park Service, who is great.
She’s amazing at working with media.
We’ve loved working with her.
She’s super quick.
We worked with tons of national parks before.
In our experience, this has been an incredible experience compared to some of the past dealings with them.
She’s just extremely responsive, which we love.
Rachel Croft at the Hoodoo was great.
Rebecca, as I mentioned, Josh, the Moab Museum.
I didn’t mention, but we were in Moab a couple weeks ago, and the journalist, typically a journalist for a story like the Wall Street Journal, goes, experiences it.
Stacey, who wrote that story, is based in Brooklyn.
She was not available, and so uniquely, we kind of lived this story ourselves, pitched it to her, and then we FaceTimed her, and she kind of wrote that story through our own experience, and it came out really nicely.
Some others on our hit list that have run as well, the Best of the Southwest, 15 Southwest Pool Resorts, San Francisco Gate, talking about the hold on timed entry.
Yahoo!
ran a great story with data from hotels as well as the national parks on deals at the hotels, and it was similar to the Wall Street Journal story on why summer is actually the best time to come.
And then I mentioned earlier, Noctourism is another one that we’re working on also, that we’ve got a bunch of leads on, and then Time Out included us there, and then the Points Guy, Best Red Rock Parks in Utah as well, without the crowds.
Court, did you want to hit the activations, or I guess I’m taking the first one here.
Yeah, I mean, just to kind of premise, these are a couple of things that we have presented to Allie and Mick that we think are really great places to play.
We’ve got to have hooks.
We’ve got to have angles to continue to have news to make the news and earn those stories, and so we want to walk you through three particular activation opportunities that we are recommending moving forward with.
Yeah, so the first is kind of holiday the Moab way.
A lot of times what we do is we take something that plays really big in news media that gets covered massively every year.
We take it, and we turn it on its head, and that’s an example of this, and so we call this newsjacking, and this would be how we basically newsjacked an annual holiday spectacle.
Every winter, the Rockefeller Center tree becomes a media spectacle.
A towering conifer fell, trucked across the country, lifted by cranes, wired with lights, surrounded by fencing.
The coverage is glowing.
The story, not so much.
It’s basically a 70-foot beautiful spruce cut from somebody’s backyard, animals displaced.
We hear about every year, carbon burned.
Somehow, the act of removing this tree is framed as a celebration.
Nobody’s ever newsjacked this that we’ve seen, and so this is kind of our idea to paint a really positive, sustainable twist on this story, and so in Moab, we’re offering something quieter, wilder, and more meaningful.
So, just beyond town, there’s short trails, obviously.
We’re looking at a couple different places here.
We’d originally been looking at places with the BLM.
Now we’re talking with Dead Horse, and the idea here is that there’s a PSA of sustainability behind this.
A lot of these trees, unfortunately, are cut down or trimmed for campfires.
People don’t realize that these trees are thousands of years old in some cases, and so this is our way to sort of bring sustainable awareness to some of these trees that are rooted in time and take what we’ve seen at Rockefeller Center, turn it on its head with this sustainable sort of tree of our own.
We’ve also talked to Goal Zero BioLite, which is a Utah company, a sustainable power bank company, who is very excited about partnering with us.
They’ve told us that they’ll give us anything we need in kind.
That would be solar-powered, sustainable banks that would power the lights.
We also understand, obviously, that because of its dark sky status, we need to be careful with the lights that we use, and so that’s something that we’re also working out with Goal Zero as well.
It’s a cool campaign.
It also drives, again, back to one of those goals, attention and visitation on a time period, the winter, when there is less.
Right, showing up in the media in the wintertime with new news and a different kind of Moab-style way of celebrating the holiday, which we love.
The other one is popping up Moab Makers and More.
We talked a lot about Moab Made, some of the chefs in Moab.
Traditionally, what a lot of PR agencies do is they send a team out to New York, go meet for desk sides.
The problem is that doesn’t always net the best results, so how do we magnetize the media in an irresistible made-in-Moab pop-up experience?
Really, these desk-side tours have become commonplace.
Editors are pulled in a million directions.
It’s really hard to nail them down.
You don’t want to take up too much of their time.
How do we deliver something to them that really enhances and elevates their day and their experience, and how do we bring Moab to them in a way that connects with them?
To attract top editors, we really want to take that desk side to the next level.
What we mean by that is producing a multi-day Moab Maker culinary and musical cultural media immersion.
It’s in place of that traditional meeting.
We run a space in markets of influence.
Right now, we’re looking at Denver and Salt Lake City, bringing Moab partners in possibly three categories.
We’re still nailing down what exactly this looks like, but we might have a grouping of makers, some culinary pros, and then perhaps some adventure purveyors that are bringing those experiences, those crafts, that food to life in this space.
Media is invited to rolling meetings.
They can schedule times with us to pop in.
They experience the best of Moab.
They eat.
They drink.
They get gifted amazing Moab-made items.
It really ensures better attendance, stronger relationship-building opportunities, and really deep storytelling offerings that are hyper-tailored to the individual media.
We might look at jewelry and perhaps personalized gifts or making crafts with media on site.
Throughout that event, we’re going to have culinary proposed perhaps preparing and serving past delicacies.
Maybe we get into a demonstration kitchen.
Really, it’s all about bringing the spirit and the soul of Moab to life in this place and allowing the media to see it firsthand and experience how amazing it is, and then maybe invite them on a trip.
For those people who can’t all get there, why not bring it to them?
We’ve activated this in the past with destination clients similar to this.
As Courtney mentioned, it’s basically bringing Moab to another place where there’s a broad range of journalists and immersing them in the experience of Moab in that place.
We’ve had enormous response to this as well.
It’s also a great way to bring our partners, expose them to media directly so they have that experience.
A lot of times, they walk away with incredible media relationships also.
Another nice part about this being really holistic.
As Courtney also mentioned, in terms of culinary makers, artists, it really lets us show every facet of Moab as opposed to just this adventure destination.
Really, a 360 experience for these folks.
I think we’re actually at the last piece here.
I think our last suggestion is just to hit – this is our most boring idea, but it’s a media event that we recommend attending because it’s important that we’re connecting with the right people in January.
So, Campbell, do you want to hit on that?
Then I think we can wrap it.
Yes.
IMN is International Media Marketplace.
It takes place in January annually in New York City.
This is something that we recommend me attending personally with Allie.
We meet typically with 20 people in sort of speed dating fashion, and we present Moab ideas.
It’s a great way to line up stories throughout the year.
We’ve had great success with this in the past.
And that’s all we’ve got.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you for the introduction.
Does anybody on the board have any critical questions that they would like to ask?
I just want to mention there was nothing mentioned about Brand New State Park, which I think should be part of the picture.
Also, America 250.
Next year is a massive year for this country, and America 250 is something that I think we can capitalize on as a destination.
Good point.
Excellent.
One other thing, too, is when we’re talking about sometimes culture and history, just remember that we are a mature destination, and adventure is part of our culture and history.
I think that we need to make sure that we’re mentioning that.
We don’t just have four-wheel drive trails.
We have trails that were built during the uranium mining.
We have great history that goes along with all that, and I just think that that should be mentioned as well.
Any other comments?
Awesome.
All right.
Thank you very much, Campbell.
Noted on all that.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
I’m going to turn the time over for item number six to Wendell because he is.
Did someone want to speak about the Contour Airlines?
Well, okay.
Sure.
You said you wanted me to go back to her.
Okay.
Look, you know what?
We’re going to skip item six.
Go back.
Not skip, but we’re going to go back to Leslie about the Contour.
Keep me on track, too.
About the Contour presentation.
That would be wonderful.
Great.
Thank you, Leslie.
Yeah, yeah, perfect.
So we’re working on scheduling some time with both Contour and the airport to walk through kind of the finalization of this.
So we have shared with them our plan.
We’re just kind of waiting for feedback.
So that overall spend that we have is $50,000.
So how we are recommending breaking that out is having 25,000 of that go to Expedia.
The push there would definitely be that booking intent, connecting with a high-intent audience.
We would also have additional support within Meta, so still in that Facebook and Instagram piece.
We’ve carved out a little bit of Facebook and Instagram to account for the billboard part.
Yeah, so you can see that we’ve accounted for billboards there as well.
And then last year, part of this buy was for Travel Zoo.
And so we wanted to build off what had been done last year as well.
So we’re really focusing on kind of these three tactics, so a bigger emphasis in what we’re doing with Expedia and Travel Zoo.
Again, trying to make sure that we’re raising awareness, driving consideration.
You’re seeing this fall a little bit more kind of awareness, as well as the lower end of the funnel trying to get bookings.
So that’s really our main effort right now, just waiting to get some feedback on that.
And then we will get rolling on that through production.
I didn’t see in the creative anything for the billboards.
I know Mick is super motivated to see some of that and looking to see what the objectives, the goals for all of that for the billboard focus is.
Yeah, so we had provided some information around the billboard and some different pieces, just waiting for that to get approved.
Once we get approval on that, that’s when that cues our production team to then build that.
So that’s just kind of where we are in the process.
But the creative’s not included in this deck that we’re looking at now?
No, the creative’s not included in that, correct.
How long would it take to get the billboard up once it’s approved?
I think like a month is reasonable.
It’s administered at a price.
Two months.
Last billboard got done in two months.
So it really just needs to connect with the airport now?
I think this might be new to them too, advertising and marketing.
It sort of turned it over to us.
Right.
And they’re okay.
They’ve given us the money and the go-ahead.
What I think we need to do is talk about what is the goal for the billboard so that we can then direct Madden for what we want them to see creative-wise.
Because, man, it was surprising how long it took.
Finally, Alex came up with some creative that we could all agree on.
So the quicker we get our goals and objectives for what the billboard wants to be, I think the easier it will be for Leslie’s crew to do that.
Does anybody have a different idea?
I would like to choose a subcommittee of three people that have the bandwidth this month to be able to look at some of those things.
What do you feel?
You want to lead on that and Leslie, do you have the dates that we proposed to contour?
We have to run this by contour.
So that committee could just join us.
I think it’s next week.
This is this week.
And so you had some updates that basically we had sent this over.
Hey, let us know if you have any questions.
We’re happy to walk through this.
So, I can check back in, or maybe try and give them a call.
So, yeah, and then those on the airport board, if we do need, we do need contour to attend.
That’s that’s their requirement.
So, we had proposed.
Thursday, I do, I do 2 or 3 on Thursdays or 2 PM.
15 are the dates that you have to be Thursday or or the 15th.
Now, since there’s 15 years, so.
Yes, well, the 14th and 15th.
Yeah, how much longer on the contour contract is there expires next next September.
So, is it worth putting up a billboard?
Well, the billboards that we have would probably not say daily flight or whatever to Salt Lake and.
Denver, because we don’t know what the next airport will be, or the airline will be.
I would propose even talking about what’s going on inside the airport and options for activities that are going on, but that’s not unilateral.
It needs to be discussed.
Do you want to be part of this?
I don’t have time this week.
I know that’s I’m just checking to see.
Yeah, I’ve got Howard who’s on the board and we’ve got I would like to be part of it.
Wendell.
Okay, Jason.
There you go.
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like, they’re paying for it.
Yeah, I mean, like, trying to get for example, trying to get them chasing.
You know, Alex used to be slated into the.
Airline scene, so I think every help all the help that we can give them is.
So, I just, I just followed up right now.
I added and Jason to the email asking Stephen and Riley, they can contact us.
All right, so we’ve got Wendell, Howard, Jason and Brian on our subcommittee.
If you guys want to connect with all of them.
Yeah.
So this way we can really get momentum going and you don’t have to go to jail.
All right, keep me straight.
Are we still now ready to go?
Okay.
Thank you so much.
All right.
I think I’m going to thank you so much.
Leslie, we’ll get back to you this week and everybody can.
All right, you go ahead, Wendell.
The next item is the strategy and branding committee.
And I think I don’t have the online version.
Yeah.
All we have is a whole item here, but okay.
Yeah.
The branding and he’s a finalist.
Yeah, well, I’m going to defer to make, but I just want to say in advance before introducing, because he’s the 1 who organized the whole process for this.
It was a big committee.
It was managing a lot of people to commissioners.
The somebody from the Utah office of tourism, some of us on the board, Quinn Hall and Gabe and yeah, so there was a, it was a big committee who is having 39 submissions.
I think it was 36 submissions and over a 100 questions or 200 or how many questions do you have to answer as part of that?
It was a huge.
It was a huge undertaking.
And I just want to give credit to make for an incredibly well, read the process throughout in terms of the selection committee.
The whole process was flawless.
He had to answer quite a few very interesting questions, and there were some standouts and there were some that were very quick knows, I think, from all of us.
And so the way the process happened, there was a score sheet we all reviewed all 36 of the applicants and individually submitted our score cards to make.
And from that, there was a lot of similarities, so we could each see each other scores.
And so we saw there was a very clear, distinct.
Group of 5, really that we all agreed on, and from that 5, we whittled it down in this room to 3.
And then the next process after that was having an in person meeting, which the agencies themselves appreciated because they said, this is very unusual.
Like, a lot of times they do everything online and to be able to sit here and present in front of you.
And which I must say that helped us immensely to hear from them directly.
They gave us a really good sense of who they are as people, how they work with people and make handle the process.
Fantastic.
I think from that, we do have a strong 3 contenders from the 3.
I think we’ve got strong to that.
We kind of all agree with the top of the 2.
and then from that, I think there have been some further questions that we need to do some more due diligence.
But in terms of the discussion, and we’ve always had a chance to review them.
If anybody has any thing they’d like to say about any of the.
3 that were presented, and now’s the time to say what you liked or didn’t like.
Do you need any decisions by this board?
So you can go ahead and make the selection.
So that we can empower you to.
So, that’s I think we probably will have to do a vote here today to give authorization to approve.
To send to the commission, but before that, we need to just to have a discussion on what you think of the finalist and if there’s any questions, or if you didn’t like any of that.
So the 2 that were the preferred of the 3.
I don’t know if that’s something we, you know, I don’t know if there is a preference that we should discuss.
Um, I think the next step is for the committee to meet and decide what we’re going to do.
I think this, we can go back and look by this board approved of the selection committee and the timeline and the RMP previously.
So, I think it’s just good practice to kind of re, raise it and give you guys an update on where we are and what our next steps, but I think they’ve already sort of put it on.
So we can put on that again.
I can review a little bit of.
The process, from my perspective, we understand that this is a lot of money and that we want to make the decision.
Well, and we’d rather slow walk, but not slow.
I mean, we want to make sure we’re responsible.
But that we’ve included the board in anything that they want to know about.
We’re also pretty pressed for time here because we’ve got 32 minutes left and so if you will go ahead and share, I think it’s really critical to share.
The, yeah, the, what you’ve went down, what we’ve all went down and go for it.
Yeah, just really quickly.
I’m sorry.
So, just to give you guys a little background to when we talk about brand, it’s important to understand what brand me.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, what brand means is we really want this to be a very community with the, with something that community can be proud of.
It’s not just a brand that we want to throw out there to get to us or what the community problem.
So, yeah, and that’s what I was going to say, too, for those that aren’t familiar with this project, we included the RFP in the packet.
So, I’d encourage anybody here to reread it or online, it gives a really broad overview or specific overview of what we’re doing.
But like Wendell said, you know, Allie and I joined about a year ago, and there hasn’t ever been a really big branding project.
We’ve inherited all of these things that we do.
We haven’t really looked at our message and the audiences that we’re going after.
So, this is really an effort to kind of get everything that we do to talk to each other and come up with a strategic direction of what we want to do.
So, I encourage people to revisit the RFP if you have questions about what a branding project is and what the scope of the work is.
Wendell gave a good overview of the process, but I’d also add that there were a thousand pages of RFP response.
So, everybody listed on our selection committee, hats off to them, because it was a huge time commitment to read all of these things and consider the agencies that all really wanted to win this bid.
Like Wendell said, we picked agencies that really looked at the scope of work and gave us a really thoughtful proposal and almost started to do the work and tell us where to go.
And we were really impressed with those people.
Three stood out, and we invited them to come to Moab to present.
So, they came last week.
Also notable because people took time out of their busy lives to come here and pitch for the work.
One is a boutique firm from Colorado, and they work with Snowmass in Santa Fe.
That’s Vladimir Jones.
And as Wendell said, these pitches are in the board packet, so you can review those and we offer comments if you have any takes on those.
The other, Voxy Sozo, has worked with Visit Bend in Seaside, Oregon, and has deep consumer product packaging experience.
They do really fun and creative work, and we thought that that experience, mixed with their experience with Bend and other destinations, could work well for us.
And the last is a team that is Campcore Tourists, who worked with STRUCK, which is an ad agency in Salt Lake City, and was involved with the Mighty Five, the iconic Utah tourism campaign and subsequent campaigns, and did the rebranding for Field Station in Town.
So, very different choices, but good choices.
The next steps are for the selection committee to meet.
We’re going to meet later this week, and we’ll make a decision.
And coming out of that meeting, we’ll bring the decision to the Commission and then move forward with contracting.
So like Wendell said, the proposals for the three firms that we interviewed are in the board packet, and we wanted to give you guys the opportunity to to weigh in, if you have any comments.
Just based on this timeline, we have to kind of give you to go ahead, because we don’t have another board meeting before you’re supposed to go to the Commission.
Yeah, I mean, we can be flexible, too.
I think that this timeline, you know, we conceived of this project soup to nuts when we launched it, and we can be flexible, so if there’s something that needs to be raised, there’s no reason to, you know, move at the appropriate speed.
If you speak to the people factor just a little bit, because that was the only thing that wasn’t included in the packet, was the one that stood out, like, Yeah, I think that I really want to Yeah, I grilled them all from the bottom of my head.
I think it did.
It did.
And, you know, the, if I had to say, you know, when we talked to Vladimir, they had a It’s extensive.
Yeah.
They had, well, you know, and the question that we were really asking is, is we were trying to get community bonding and what their process is going to be to get that community bonding.
And Vladimir, I mean, the way they presented, kind of came off, it came off like a love letter.
That really just, to me, that just really didn’t hit, you know, as they kind of went, and I wasn’t really, myself, I wasn’t impressed, you know, you can get other people’s opinion on them.
Moxie Sosa was very well put together, and it looked like kind of like an organized mission, right?
And, you know, they handled all the questions, I think, very well when we get into them.
Camp Stories, I think they are very important, right?
I mean, out of everybody, I think they had the most aha moments, right?
It seemed like they would be the ones that went swing for the fences.
So I think you might be looking, in my opinion, kind of what I looked at two people I thought that Moxie Sosa was a very, very safe bet, and I think they’re going to be a very sound agency to work with.
And I think that we might, you might see Camp Stories Tourist be a little bit more on the edge and be looking a little bit.
Right, they were, they were looking for something, this would be a big client to, you know, biggest client, so they were hungry, and I thought they put in some good work.
Very visually, they were, they were very visual in their presentation, as opposed to Moxie Sosa, who kind of relied on their past experience with FEND, and Vladimir.
I did like Vladimir, it did seem like they had the best structure, as far as strategic, and they did have a good strategic structure, so they have that kind of plan all rolled out.
I think those were probably the biggest points that I got from from talking to them.
And just very quickly, everything that Madden is going to be doing, everything that, it’s all dependent on, so that’s why we want to make sure we make the right choice, because this is going to be shaping the way Moab is seen by everybody, locals, tourists, everyone, so that’s where we’re taking our time, that’s where we’re going to have yet another meeting, because there’s still some due diligence to do on them to make sure we’re making the right choice.
I think it’s really critical to point out that the questions that were asked by the group were very focused on trying to find a way that the community was going to be happy with the brand, not just outfitters, not just government, not just little esoteric little places here and there.
This has to be, and that’s going to take some real magic, but I feel like we’ve really tried to go deep and ask questions that people can be proud of the message that we’re sending out together, and I’m not saying we have all the answers, but I feel like that was a really critical piece of where we were trying to go with our brand.
Laura did a good job, exactly.
The questions were based on, I mean, an angel of questions, who is Moab?
That’s a very hard question, right?
Because Moab is something different to everybody at a certain time period.
You know, when you came here, Moab was the ideal location, right?
And how are you going to make it that Moab is that?
It encompasses all of those people, so, yeah.
So, do we need to have a vote to authorize the subcommittee to be able to arm?
I think I would call for a motion.
Are you all comfortable with that?
Sure, I was going to make a motion to give the authority to the selection committee to choose the branding agency out of the three finalists and allow them to take it through the commission.
Do we have a second?
I’ll second that.
Okay.
And as I know that this still has to go to the commission, so this is for us to be able to get to the commission.
I just want you to kind of have to come back to us again.
Exactly.
I’m on board.
Those who vote, all in favor.
Thank you very much.
I am not on my game.
All in favor.
And Rebecca, are you on?
Yeah, Jason had a thumbs up.
Oh, Jason did.
Well, Meg, I heard you’ve been running a PR agency since the time that you walked into the door for the county, so congratulations.
Okay, who’s got the update?
Oh, for Global Markets.
Yes, that’s me.
We’ve got a really custodial here.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, so I tried to outline all of our Global Markets efforts because it’s kind of five arms and so it can get really confusing.
I’ll go through this fast.
I won’t go through everything.
But basically, we do three things with the Utah Office of Tourism, and then we do two Global Markets efforts on our own.
So sales missions, we have five upcoming.
The UOT has a different fiscal year.
They’re like July to July.
So this is on their fiscal year.
But we’re going to the UK, France, China, and then we have two reverse missions where they come to us.
So that’s India and Germany.
On location missions, Ben Padreo went to a Benelux mission last fall.
And so it looks like five to six days and you’re in market and you’re doing one-on-one meetings.
This is very guided by the UOT.
So Emma Queenan will put together a group presentation where we’ll have like five or six slides to explain Moab and then you get to do these like one-on-one meetings and go to lunch and network and things like that.
And so the reverse missions are on us to plan.
So when India comes here in October, they’re going to come to Moab on the 9th.
We’ve got them hotel rooms.
They’ll do a little local sightseeing.
They only have an hour.
So TBD, what that’ll look like.
And then we’ll get them dinner.
And then the next day, they’ll have breakfast.
We’ll do a little introduction.
We get 45 minutes to do a destination presentation.
These are a lot of people who already know Moab.
And so we really want to do something fun, maybe have like a local guide present or speak to history or something interesting.
And then we get a short break and then we have one-on-one meetings with eight Indian buyers.
And this is when we can invite up to six partners to join these sessions.
So it’s almost like IPW, like everybody would have a different table and you’re doing one-on-one meetings.
And those are 10 minutes each.
And then we all have lunch and then they do some hotel site inspections and then they leave to go to the next destination.
I must say there were some very specific requests.
Yes.
For India.
Requests for like who can chat with what they want.
Yes.
Could you send me a list of hotel specifications so that people have all the best?
Yes, definitely.
I would love to work with you on that, Cora, because I still haven’t had time to like email everyone and say, you know, who wants to participate in this?
Because I’m trying to organize it so that I only have to send one and say like, here are all the places where you can participate in our global markets.
And it’s taken a little bit to get those organized.
And Utah Office of Tourism is very specific, as Wendell was saying, about who is allowed based on their pre-vetting criteria.
So we just, I don’t want people to feel uninvited.
But if they don’t already have some of those criteria met, then they’re limiting.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then we have fan trips.
Everybody wants to come to that.
So I work with Ben Mangelsdorf.
Yeah, on the top one, on like the 45 minute presentation.
I don’t know if you know who Blaine Reniger is.
Oh, yeah.
He does history in LA.
I had him do a lecture a couple of weeks ago.
I mean, he knows a lot about the area.
I don’t know if that would be something that would fit the history of LA.
I think that would be awesome.
He’s a very good presenter.
Yeah, I’m a marketing person.
I’m not a trained presenter.
And so I think it would be amazing to have a local guide, like somebody who knows how to capture an audience, how to speak about the space, do that.
Not me.
Yeah, so fan trips.
Everybody wants to come to the lab.
I get a ton of these requests with Ben Mangelsdorf.
So far, we’ve posted seven trips for 31 travel industry professionals from 11 countries.
September, obviously, it’s a really popular time to be here.
So we have five upcoming trips with 32 professionals from five countries.
We partner with the UOT to balance like hotels and meals.
And everybody who comes gets a little box of like our outdoor adventure guide and our travel planner and some local art.
And then I write them a card and we give them our business card.
So we keep in touch.
The opt in is the big like marketing campaigns.
So this marketing opt in was approved way back in May.
And we work with the UOT reps who are in these countries who are developing marketing strategies for these regions.
So we’re in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, the Benelux region, India, China, Germany, UK and Ireland.
And we’re doing 50 campaigns.
And each of these campaigns like its own little situation.
So like one of the Canada example campaign is with Explore magazine.
And we’re doing a contest that will involve a fam trip that will organize a print ad, three newsletters, two online articles, three website display ads, three social media posts.
So we work on these with Madden to make sure we’re telling, you know, the same story.
And a lot of these include like a travel show and a festival.
And Australia will have its own virtual sales mission.
And we’ll do another virtual sales mission with India, China, there’ll be a travel expo and a tourism exhibition.
So these are really fun and have a big giant spreadsheet if anybody wants to see how keeping those organized.
Okay, and then we split up, we start splitting up from the UOT when we do travel shows.
So we do these like in partnership, but mostly we’re managing these ourselves.
So in 2025, we went to Go West ITB.
I went to IPW in Chicago in June, and we met with 38 travel professionals from 13 countries.
That was that strategy was developed by Ben Frederick, he wanted us to kind of just have like conversations, chat with people get to know what they needed from us.
And then we sent them all follow up emails.
And then we’re going to brand USA travel week in October in London and make us go into that.
And we found an IPW that people really want our tenors and they want to know who they can work with.
So we need to get a list of like local suppliers who work with our TOs.
And then we have our totally independent international marketing, which is with Madden.
And we’re still determining these markets.
But they have, we have like our own individual investment here that we do totally separate from the UOT.
So it’s kind of a look at our global markets.
Awesome.
I’m really, really, I mean, I’m so happy to see how much you’re working with the UOT because they have such a huge budget.
And they have so many people and they’re doing such great work.
So the your ability to work with them and brand USA, who selected, I mean, that ability to work with them has been incredible.
Yeah, it’s amazing.
And so I’m really happy that you guys, I mean, the more we can work with them, the better.
And I think it’s technology.
I think so too.
I mean, doing these 50 campaigns is a total cost of like $130,000, which, you know, for all of this that we’re getting is really great.
It’s great.
And then just two quick things, you know, and then we have a test.
One is, you know, those contacts that you made somehow that this board can go ahead and look at those and make sure that they’re getting filtered off to the businesses.
Because we also, I mean, that is just a suggestion that you use the power of this board, right?
Because they are going to know quite a few people in each one of these little industries.
And they might be able to say, oh, great, like we have this people and they were interested in this and they can filter those contacts out to those individual businesses.
And then the second would just be, you know, the presentation that you guys put together.
I know you’re going to be working with them.
Just make sure that this board has an opportunity to approve that presentation and maybe provide some input inside there just to see if there’s something that they want to make sure that’s getting pushed out.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, that would be great.
I mean, going to IPW was my first time going to these travel conferences and I could see everyone around me like so dialed with their presentations.
And I was like, I’m still understanding like how this works.
So I’d love to hear from like you and Laurie who have been to these shows before.
Okay.
I don’t think there’s anything we need to vote because we’ve already voted and we’re happy with the work that’s going on, but thank you for the update.
Does anybody have any critical questions about any of that as we move forward?
Thank you so much.
Moving on to reviewing and potential approval of the MTAB bylaws.
These have been reworked by the administrative offices.
And from my understanding have been approved by legal, Brian, are you familiar?
They’ve been approved by legal, correct?
Yes.
I have not received confirmation by email that they were approved by email.
So I’m going to be trusting that.
Go ahead, Sharon.
I have, there’s a couple of things in here that probably need to be changed again.
Okay.
Because down in the board can consist of liaisons.
It’s still list of my chamber of commerce as a liaison down there, which they are now a voting member.
So I don’t think they should be merged.
That should have been right in red.
It was not?
No.
Okay.
No, it’s after the, all the red letters, it’s the net hits two paragraphs down and the board consists of liaisons within the county.
And it says, it specifically says my chamber of commerce will act as a designated liaison represented by the director or their assignee.
And Brian, will you talk to the fact that we have a spreadsheet that was included in the packet that lists how we all are represented.
And then also.
Will you, will you circle those please?
Because I’m going to probably suggest that we postpone the voting on the MTAB.
And then I just have one minor thing in the section four.
So the duties of the board are to section four.
B it says avoid major conflicts of interest, blah, blah, blah, financial payments, whatever between the MTAB office of tourism and board members or member of his immediate family.
It should be their immediate family.
I don’t have to follow this.
One of the things that I didn’t notice from there as well is it says subject to taxes.
And I do think that we should spell out the TRT and the TRCCA in there rather than just have it be the tax says it should probably say TRT and TRCCA, but it should be specific as it is written.
Okay.
We’ve been trying to get all of this into the packet as quickly as possible.
And I love that you read it and caught it.
Go ahead, Brian, and you talk about the spreadsheet of who’s going on.
Yeah.
So when we look at the spreadsheet, if we’re going to have a nine, it’s going to be a nine board member right here.
And then the majority, we need to have two, we have to have two other tourism or cultural relations.
And we have those right now, then which one would be Sharon and the other would be Howard Trenholm right there.
I mean, the majority of the members would have to be TRCCA or TRT collectors.
So that will need when we, when we do go ahead and look for the additional board member, it would be a TRT or TRCCA collector.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was two that we put out, but then there was some questions over employee or owner.
And so we actually went back and looked at the code, I think, and it does say employee.
So no, my date is wrong.
It says my term was up.
Oh, no, it’s not.
I was reading up.
So it’s 2028.
I thought there was two versions of this.
No.
So if we could put our corrections to the admin and then hold off on voting on these bylaws till the next, it shouldn’t take very long, but if everybody wants to read through all of this, when we put it in the packet for the next meeting, that’s super helpful that you point that out.
So if we could get the administration to please solicit applications from TRT, TRCCA collectors for the ninth position that we will have on the board.
When do you need those bylaws?
I would say, do we want to have the next month?
Do we want to select or interview?
Do we want to interview?
All right.
So if they could have those in soon enough so that we could, you know, a week before so that we could interview them prior to the September meeting.
I was just thinking since we have our normal business meetup on August 21st, that might be a good time to share that first.
Sure.
Absolutely.
So I’m not feeling there’s anything we need to vote on right now moving forward.
Is there anybody that feels like there’s something that we should be voting on before to move this forward?
I’m going to postpone that till next meeting.
All right.
So the update on TRT, TRCCA application process and potential subcommittee, will you talk to that?
I wish I had an update.
We put it, we voted two months ago to put together an application.
It was approved by the board.
It was sent the next day to administration and legal and there’s still no update.
So I don’t have, there is no application yet.
It’s still somewhere in administration.
Since that application, the legality and all that hasn’t been approved, we can’t really keep going forward.
So the idea for those of you who aren’t aware is, or I’m not sure if it, so the, particularly with mitigation with regard to TRT and TRCCA every year, the board gives a recommendation.
This is my first year, but the board gives a recommendation on how those funds should be spent.
And Alex was really, that was mostly your suggestion.
It was like, we need to have a more formal process and then maybe we can do an application.
And so that was having an actual application that I’m applying for tourism or I’m applying for mitigation and how they intend to use those funds.
If they’ve received them before, how much they got, that kind of thing to make it more transparent for everybody.
And that way we could wait for the interest.
And there’s a copy of the form inside of the agenda.
I would make a recommendation maybe to still form the subcommittee now so that when more time does return, we can go ahead and get that put through and then we can go ahead and start this process.
Do you think that is going to be a little bit of work for some of these agencies that are going to be applying and it’s going to take a little bit of time to let everybody know that, hey, this is going to be the process for them.
So once that paperwork, if when gets approved, we would like to have people who are interested in helping identify that mitigation money.
Yeah.
Well, at least go ahead and organize it.
Right.
So that we’ve got, I mean, if you had to ask me how I would perceive it is that subcommittee would go ahead, get everybody organized, put it all into a packet and then we would have a a workshop here where we could go ahead and say, this is what we’ve gone through.
You can have people come in if there’s questions to ask.
And then from that point, we can go ahead and you guys can go ahead and write your recommendation.
Awesome.
Are there interested people in being part of that subcommittee?
I know everybody’s super busy this time of year.
So I’m just going to look for volunteers.
Howard and Wendell, hopefully.
And I’ll have Alex.
Oh, Alex.
OK.
We can’t have a quorum, but we can have three.
And if we have non-voting there, they could always be liaisons.
But we are going to have a ton of extra subcommittees that we would love help with because there’s heavy lifting going on.
I don’t think we need to vote on subcommittees to get to a point that.
So we’re going to have Howard, Wendell and Alex, unless you get to a point where you’re like, hey, can I get some help?
Whatever.
I know how the restaurant business does in September.
Great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s going to be good.
Started a little bit before the storm period.
Super good.
All right.
Moving on to item 10.
This is a tricky one.
And I know we’ve got 10 minutes at least for this to review the special event grant application and guidelines potential and a potential subcommittee.
This has been a little bit messy this year.
Do you want to start talking to this?
We both talked to this.
Well, I think basically, I mean, I haven’t been around for the last process.
I think that.
The what makes it very tricky is there used to be an economic development department and the economic development department basically ran this as they had somebody doing it.
And now there is no longer an economic development department and every document for the grant process talks about the economic development department.
The goals are based on the economic development department.
So it’s going to require kind of a relooking.
I know we’re kind of coming at it too late, but I think it’s a great opportunity to kind of revisit.
And I know Sharon, you’ve had concerns about money potentially going to the same people every year and having maybe some new, you know, looking at it from a new perspective.
And before the economic development department joined with the travel council at the time, the travel council was the one who used to run this.
And that’s where the money comes from.
Yes.
And so I think if we try to find some old history for when we did it before, but I know the process has become very muddy, very muddy, and like uninformed.
It gets put on, I mean, nothing against the office of economic development.
When they were there, they were working very hard, but they would go through everything and then just throw it at us and say, okay, you need to approve this.
And I had a conversation with Mark Tyner over this and the idea that two boards trying to approve this one grant, it just wasn’t And since this money is TRT, and then you guys are the legal body to approve the funds for TRT, I think that it should stay within this board right here.
And so I think the recommendation would be that you guys, right now, and this is partly me talking, because as I know that the I’m aware of the office of tourism right now is taking some big lifts with all of what we have going on with the branding, the PR and the media agencies.
Thank you.
And it would be nice if this board right here could take over that lift.
Dana has offered her services for any technical, so she’s willing to help out to go ahead and get this put out.
And so if we could form a subcommittee here that would help out to get this process started and get us moving back in that direction that we needed to be.
I believe that when we look back at the history, this is supposed to be a matching grant for advertising funds.
And so I think that we need to make sure the timelines that we have right now, this is one of my, these are my concerns, timelines we have now, it looks like it’s a repay type of grant.
Right.
And I think that’s what happened last year.
And I think that we can move forward and just say, we’re just going to move forward and we’re going to start in whatever time period you guys think is proper so that we can go ahead and say, great, give me your idea, you give me your idea, we approve the matching media fund and maybe we pay half, something like that.
And then when they come back and they’ve proved that they actually spent this money on advertising, we can then go ahead and say, great, and here’s the final check.
Something kind of like that, just almost like nearing the economic development grants that are going on right now.
I asked Sharon and Howard to start spearheading this because these are passion projects, I know, for Sharon, at least with your history on this board.
And Howard reached out to Quinn and got the skinny on where we are and what’s going on.
And he confirmed, we do not have a process in place.
It’s $62,000 in the amount of heavy lift for giving all this.
We need to do a lot of ground work before.
It has always been, the timeline has been cumbersome.
We would like to start looking at 2026 and start that in September where we can look at people who want a grant in 2026 so we can be ahead not doing this, let’s throw some money in the air because some people need money.
We really want to be responsible stewards of how we do this.
And we haven’t even, Quinn has confirmed, we haven’t heard back from the people that received grants last year to find out how that was done.
And that’s the other piece of the puzzle that economic development handled that they’re not able to handle because they don’t even have a department at this point.
Wait, let me get Howard, do you have anything you want to add to that?
Because that was, I’m trying to go fast.
I mean, just from a whole point of view, we used to do this annually and there was one meeting where we’d get all the money set aside, we’d approve it in our budget, and that was good for the whole next year.
The commission just had to approve our budget and you didn’t have to be presented each event as it came up.
And it was strictly for marketing and it was a matching fund and it got muddled and it got taken away.
It’d be nice to bring it back to its roots.
Is there a staff member, a county staff member that has special events coordinated?
No, we don’t have a special event.
That’s how this thing says that it went from that person to the economic development.
And I think that’s what the subcommittee is going to need to do.
Is redo this, basically redo this.
They’re going to have to redo the process and the structure.
Now, I mean, I will say that events are super important.
Yes.
So they bring in lots of money and I think that this is a great opportunity to out to also reach out to new events.
This could be an incentive that we could do to bring new events inside of town.
There’s a lot of people, I think that when I looked at it, it seemed like a lot of the same folks were applying and will lose grants after a little while.
And it would be really nice if we were actually going out and bringing new businesses in and saying, hey, come on down to Moab, we’re going to give you so-and-so amount of dollars to match your advertising fund, which is a big part of putting on an event.
We’re really focused on blocking out certain periods of the year.
Like we literally blackout spring and fall and really trying to encourage events in shorter seasons, summer months and everything else.
Let’s have dark skies festival in the middle of January, for example.
These are the things we’re trying to do to kind of even out the flow of travel into Moab and these events help bring visitors in, in the off season.
So Ben Alter actually did a spreadsheet.
I tried to read it off.
It says swan Ben’s with my little eyes.
So I put a thing in my own Excel and made it big.
But there’s some great questions on this.
And he even listed the old goal versus the current goal.
And what is, will you read what he feels?
Because these are a lot of Ben Alter’s feelings as opposed to submitting feelings.
What should the goal of the grant be?
That’s a question.
The old goal previous when Howard and I were doing this before was funding is to use as seed money to new events to help develop annual events that bring more tourists to Grand County.
The current goal as it’s listed now is funding is to be used to develop and support events that encourage, encourage quality of life, Grand County residents and quality visitation to Grand County.
Would you like to be on the committee with Howard to do this?
I know it’s a huge lift, but you have to be on there with Howard.
Yes, I do.
This is something that, I mean, I, I got myself in trouble last year when I made comments.
Because it isn’t, it’s supposed to be, you know, bringing new things here, new exciting and, you know, but yes, I would, I would actually be on this committee.
Does anybody else have, what?
I don’t know, I’ll just say yay.
Yay.
Because you’re passionate about this.
And I can help, I’ll help.
Are you interested in this?
Yes, I’m interested.
Okay, good.
We’ll, we’ll put you on that.
Me, Howard, Laura, with help from.
I’ll make sure that we have, for me and then I’ll have Dana and then in staff that we need to coordinate.
Okay.
Whether that’s post or special events.
I think we need to try to get together as soon as possible.
Okay.
Would you be the leader of our committee?
No, actually, which one are you the leader of?
I asked you to be.
Yeah, you asked me.
Yeah, you’re on.
So, you don’t have to leave.
How about that?
Howard, just be one team.
But we can always meet at the next.
We’ve got a big enough.
I mean, we can set some tables.
Yeah.
Auditorium.
You’re leaving.
I just have to know, you better, everybody set up the meeting.
So, there you go.
There you go.
Awesome.
Any additional input about any of the following items or the previous items?
Are we looking for a new director for the opposite tourism?
Is there anything on that?
I would defer to Brian on that.
So, right now, we’re still deciding what they call.
What’s that?
And I was trying not to say that.
And since you said it, I’ll go ahead and put it out.
Let’s have a firm that goes out and search.
Talent agency.
Talent agency.
However, you want to look at it.
We’re looking at hiring one of those.
So, right now, the office is looking at three different firms.
Slavens, who helped us out with the funding and zoning.
We’re also looking at another one called Horizon.
And they specialize in DMOs.
And there’s another agency as well.
So, they’re going to be looking at a firm right now.
And then going in those steps forward.
Budget season is upcoming in our next meeting.
We’ll have budget issues.
How would the commission, speaking from your point of view, like to see the budget process happen?
Are we going to be doing that as a committee?
Are we going to try to get staff?
I’d say that we’d move along as we have in the past.
So, I think that the travel council here, or I’m sorry, the Travel Advisory Board, should move in the same process that they have.
And then we’ll include Mark and Quinn who are the Acting Interim Directors right now.
Make sure that they’re involved with how we go forward as some of our offices.
So, Mark and Quinn will draft the budget with…
They’re going to have to help out.
And then I can facilitate the best that I can.
But yeah, I would imagine that they would help draft with the Moab Office of Humanism the draft budget for you guys to approve.
Okay.
Does anybody have any additional questions?
Guys, look at…
I just want to reiterate and thank these two for what they’ve taken on.
Right.
If we could look, I mean, not to gloat, but we’ve come a long way in six months, since January.
And I really, really appreciate the involvement of everybody that’s rewriting the ship.
Those are my words.
The ship’s heading in a different direction and I’m grateful.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you all for being here.
Adjourned.
Time of the meeting is 4.01. 4.01. We are adjourning the August 12th meeting.
She’s trying.
She’s got a sick child.
She’s hidden from red.
All right, let’s get started.
We’ve got the Moab Tourism Advisory Board meeting held today, August 12th at 2 p.m., an adjusted time due to another meeting coming up after.
Would everybody like to go around the room and just introduce themselves briefly?
I’m Howard.
This is Rocky Mountaineer.
Awesome.
I’m Brian Martinez.
I’m the Commission Liaison.
I’m Cora Phillips.
I will be serving in a position for the Chamber.
I serve as the Executive Director.
And just a quick plug, if I may, we have a survey out in the community to find support for businesses for the first week in December.
A little bit louder, sorry.
Oh, certainly.
I’m part of you.
I serve as the Director for the Chamber of Commerce and will be serving in the Chamber position here on out.
So excited to work with you all.
And then just a quick plug, if I may, we have a survey out in the business community.
Typically the Electric Light Parade and the Tree Lighting Ceremony.
And we really think there’s an opportunity to support our business community and invite tourists to the area and help bolster our season.
It’s posted on our Facebook page and sent out to Chamber members.
And then I have a little graphic if you’d like to see that.
Thank you for the people.
Sharon Kinsley with the Margaret Dunn.
Where do I work?
I’m a board member.
Alex Bershefsky, board member.
Rick Saleta, Moab Office of Tourism.
Allie Parker, Moab Office of Tourism.
Wendell Williams, board member.
Lori McFarland, Chairperson and my Vice Chair.
Vice Chair and board member.
Wendell, you have to have the load.
Representing High Point Learning and Moab.
Welcome.
And we’ve got some visitors in the gallery also.
Go ahead and introduce yourself.
I’m Lizzie.
I’m with the TI.
Welcome.
I’m just interested in your resume.
Thank you.
I’m Stephen Biles.
I’m representing the county finance.
Thank you so much.
Oh, thank you very much, Brian.
And if you’re online and would like to introduce yourself, that would be awesome.
Jason Taylor, Moab City Council.
And sorry, I’m not there in person today.
I’m up at National Ability Center up in Park City with my son.
So, summer camp.
You look like you’re in your car.
Thanks for that.
I’m in the parking lot.
That’s a good place to be, Jason.
We’ve got Leslie.
Leslie, go ahead.
Hi, yeah.
I’m Leslie Robal with Madden Media.
I am the senior destination strategy director here.
So, I’m excited to be here.
Awesome.
And I see Campbell Levy also.
Hi, Campbell Levy from Camp Stories.
PR earned media for Moab Office of Tourism.
Awesome.
And Courtney.
Hi, all.
Courtney, how’s some Camp Stories?
Welcome.
Is there anybody that we have neglected or forgotten or ignored?
Awesome.
I know that Rebecca is going to try to jump on in a minute.
She had a very, very sick child, and she was dashing to try to get there for her child.
And she has apologies for not being here in person.
Next, we’d like to offer the opportunity, if anybody would like two minutes for us citizens to be heard.
Welcome to have you speak, if you’d like.
Good.
Thank you so much, y’all.
And, of course, welcome.
Does anybody have a conflict of interest of any items that are on the agenda?
I have a couple extra agendas if you need to look to see if you have any.
I have a couple of disclosures.
So, yeah, previously, and I disclosed these to the commission just for this board.
I wrote on the Canyon Spirit last week just to kind of see how the new route from Salt Lake City to Moab was going to be.
And it was a fantastic experience.
And then also I was on the filming of the Zeus movie as well, which was placed on the Colorado River.
I did have that contract prior to becoming commission, and I don’t have any type of say over who gets the contracts as far as the Moab Film Commission does.
So, if anybody has any questions on that, feel free to reach out to me.
Thank you so much for the full disclosure.
Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead.
The Camp Stories, thank you for getting that Wall Street Journal article.
One of the people that was featured on Paddle Moab is a tenant of a building that I’m partial owner of.
I only found out about the article after they had interviewed them.
So, just by full disclosure, Paddle Moab is a tenant of a building I’m partial owner of.
I don’t know if this, I’ll just disclose it just in case.
The production company with the Zeus used the parking lot and the auditorium for their staging of the filming on Main Street.
We can’t sublease, so we did not lease anything.
How did it go?
Good.
Very, very nice people.
Very good people.
Thank you for having…
Well, the road was going to be closed anyway.
No one could get into our parking lot anyways.
Well, we’re still grateful that you could be so welcoming to a production.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do you have any forms that I need to sign?
We will.
And I want to welcome Cora as the new representative.
She introduced herself already.
We are going to change the order just a little bit.
Instead of having board member reports at the top, we’re going to move the director’s report to the top in courtesy of several people’s time that are participating.
And I’m going to turn the table over to Brian.
And let him run that.
So we’re kind of asking if I would…
I did ask Stephen Vowles to come in.
So, Stephen, if you want to give us a quick update on some of the tax revenues that have been collected.
I know you presented it to the commission, but I think that might be helpful as well.
Yeah, I brought my notes.
Actually, so for the tax collected in July for the actual tax collections in May was a good month.
It was a really good month.
So it’s, you know, we’re still down.
In prior to July, our tax collection was 6% below budget.
So we increased it to 4% below budget.
So we increased 2%.
But I think the highlight was that it was a great month.
Looking at some of the numbers, like TRT was the fourth largest tax collection dating back to start of 2017.
That was a good month.
Sorry, for restaurant, it was the highest month ever for tax collection.
Now, I’m not certain that that says that restaurant had just an incredible month.
But as far as the tax collection reported by the Utah State Tax Commission, it was the best month on record.
How are we doing year over year on that compared to last year?
So for year over year, using 12 months.
Year over year, we’re at minus 5% on TRT, positive 10% on restaurant.
Positive 10% on restaurant.
Yes.
Minus 6% on sales, minus 1% on hospital, minus 11% on carbon.
So everything is down.
So it’s carbon, TRCCA, including UTVs.
Are you combining the carbon?
Yes, I combined the county highway and public transit, short-term leasing, car and OHV in car rental.
So car rental in itself.
So it’s interesting.
Restaurant is up.
I mean, I just would have to assume that people are going up.
There was just a recent article in the Times that said that.
I just wanted to make sure that I was correct.
Yeah.
It said that restaurant was down on top of that.
It is.
Again, year over year and where we’re doing with the Jeep and those combined.
TRCCA for the UTV collections and the Jeep tax.
I don’t know what the question is.
So I didn’t really understand where we are doing year to date with the Jeep rentals year to date and compared year over year.
Does that.
I can look that up.
I didn’t hear any of that in the report.
Good question.
Let me go find X.
I have that in specific.
So I do combine the taxes for my purposes.
Budgeting.
I’m sorry, tight schedule.
I’m trying to make sure that we can all have time.
So as far as that.
I just really want to start off by commending your guys’s office.
I know you guys have been putting in incredible work.
You know, watching what’s happening and you guys are doing a fantastic job.
So I do think that everybody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Great job.
And so you guys kind of.
Provided me with some things that I just, I don’t know if you guys have just kind of filled out a couple of questions and you guys can just kind of answer what’s been happening.
So you guys want to just go over real quick, what’s been happening with the Madden update.
Yeah.
So Madden’s on the call.
They’re going to review on what they’ve been doing since we got started.
But high level we’re developing, reviewing and editing ads, and rolling them out.
Leslie will review some of the numbers, which I find.
Pretty impressive.
We’ve developed a new set of audience profiles.
So just as we were targeting.
With all kinds of demographics.
And then we’ve also developed.
Plan for the airport budget.
So the airport has $25,000 to spend on marketing.
This board is matching that.
And Madden’s developed a plan to review the airport board.
And roll out advertising and some billboard updates.
And then what’s going on with the co-op grant.
The co-op grant was awarded last week.
Thanks to the state.
We were awarded 146,000.
And you’ve been done.
Yeah.
That’s a good thing.
Yeah.
It’s a great thing.
No, I mean, tell them.
In perspective.
It was the second highest.
Yeah.
182.
Yeah.
The slides are in.
The materials that are part of the board packet.
Then Frederick will put together this plan with Madden.
So it was Madden’s first time.
And Allie and I went up to the state.
For the interview.
So we interviewed.
So that he went up and back in one day.
Okay.
Just to give credit where credit is due.
Mick went up there.
At the interview and came back on the same day.
But it was a great result.
The music festival also got $24,000.
The museum got $3,000.
So we can add that to the total for Moab.
And I just think in the future, we can just continue to work.
With the state understand more about this grant.
Yeah.
And, you know, I’m a competitive person and I want to get the top.
So.
You know, we both really like working with the state across all of their verticals and.
We just want to lean into that relationship.
Perfect.
Including this grant.
And then anything just like talk about the website.
Website updates continue.
Businesses can email me.
To add photos and descriptions to their business profiles.
We’re continuing to make.
Content updates.
And I just want to.
Remind everyone that this was contra content migration.
So it was a technology upgrade.
So it looks shiny and new, but a lot of the content we’ve inherited from a long time.
So we’ll talk a little bit about the branding project later, but a part of the branding project is to reassess.
How we use the website, the messaging on the website and update that.
So we’ll talk a little bit about that.
There’s a lot of really good information on there.
We don’t want to lose it, but.
We’re probably going to shift.
The content focus in the future.
Do you want to talk a little bit about the brochure distribution?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we generate leads through the website.
On discover more people can request a travel planner.
And we also work with go Utah.
To generate leads.
And so we send those out to businesses when people.
Like, like, yes, I want to know more about operating.
And we’ve also sent them to.
Slash.
Can you add to advertising and they.
Mail all of those out.
So they’re distributing travel planners to people who ask for them.
And then we’re also distributing outdoor adventure guides.
So, yeah.
So, yeah.
That’s in town.
Originally.
The outside road, less even episode.
The marketing that’s happening.
Yeah, sure.
So the road.
Let’s even episode is live.
This was a part of last year’s.
So the outside.
He came out and shot this episode as part of their editorial team and process.
But it’s live and it comes as they promote it.
There are.
And then we also have.
Some teasers.
But also some ad opportunities.
So Madden developed some, some ads in our brand ad campaign and it’s running on the outside website.
In addition to some newsletters.
So that’s up and running.
I mean, just a couple more things that the best of tree.
Oh, yeah.
You’ll hear about that from the PR agency.
But we’re trying to do an activation then.
So.
I can tease to it.
Yeah.
But we want to do something like holiday themed.
And encourage people to come visit during the holidays.
So we’re thinking of lighting up like a Indian pine tree.
And maybe a recommendation might be to have Cora.
From the chamber.
Involved.
Like that and get her looped into it.
The chamber is working on some stuff for the holidays.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
And then last is the mud springs.
Trail system.
So I’m going to go over that real quick.
If you could just tell me.
What’s kind of happening with that.
Yeah.
So the mud springs trail system is going to open in mid November.
But it only opens for like two weeks and then it closes again for elk migration.
And so.
The trail team is interested in like figuring out a way to get the news out that we have this new trail system, but not cause a flood of people to come try to ride it in December when it’s closed.
So we were thinking of doing like a specific event.
Like a ribbon cutting or something similar to that, to encourage people to check it out.
And I was thinking like, maybe we could get some bike influencers to come down and like ride at first almost.
And then we can generate all this buzz, like come back again in April.
Yeah.
I think that’s a good idea.
I have the big scissors.
You let me know.
Might be as well as you might want to invite some of the champions or winners from the NICA races.
Yes.
And see if they want to come down and ride the course.
Yeah.
Just.
Just throw that out there.
I mean, we’ve got such a great high school.
We’ve got such a great high school team.
That would be a really good asset.
To have them try it out and be the youth kind of element of it.
Like, you know, that way.
Yeah.
You know, When I do the hardest best things.
Perfect.
That covers us.
Awesome.
Thank you guys.
Okay.
We often have our board member reports at the end, but if everybody will limit themselves to just a quick minute.
My report is I’m just working hard.
Trying to welcome every human.
In our door and say, thank you for coming.
That’s my report from.
For the July and August oppressive.
Slow.
Go ahead.
Canon spirit.
We had a test run for the salt lake route, which will be next year.
On board the train.
When Brian and bill came back on was the world’s press.
Who came through Moab for the evening.
So a nice bit of PR.
There’s already some press releases coming out from that traveler and leisure.
So that is happening next year.
The hope is that Moab will become a.
Instead of being an end point, it will be a midpoint and end points.
So we may benefit from.
Overnight visitors from Salt Lake going to Denver.
But we’ll also have two day travelers that will just do the Moab Denver route.
So.
The goal is to have 25,000 visitors a year on the train, which when you consider how many hotel room nights that brings to our community, meals, et cetera, it’s a pretty valuable product.
So I, I hope that our body can work together with Rocky mountain air to.
Maybe when they launch in 2026.
You have to have a welcoming committee for them, both at Thompson.
Which would be the salt lake.
That’s where the train will go because there’s no left turn at present junction.
But also that first route coming in from Denver with Canyon spirit to maybe welcome at seven miles.
So an opportunity to bring Thompson.
And seven mile next year.
That’s it.
Well, I mentioned our survey during my introduction.
So please check that out or circle back with me.
We have our.
Business meetup with the who do on August 21st.
With our chamber members.
And then we partnered with Steve Simons with Parsons.
And then we partnered with the city of Davis.
For navigating the impacts of the big beautiful.
Whether those are that sort of.
I already told you about the production company.
Parking lot in auditorium.
It was actually a lot of fun.
I was there at 5.00 AM.
That morning.
Great.
Great people.
Anyone that I dealt with.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun.
As far as visitation.
Arches through June inside the BC is up three and a half percent.
And the gate was up one and a half percent.
The Mick through July.
The reason I’ll have June then is because.
Or July Denver arches is because I was gone last week.
And I didn’t get out there yesterday or today.
The Mick through July visitation is actually at 11%.
And.
August 1st.
So we’re still getting quite a few people coming in the door.
There.
Hopefully we’ll.
Sending them.
Places.
We had quite a few people doing asking about river trips today.
I know.
I know.
So, you know, we’ll suggesting morning.
So.
And a lot of, I mean, we’ve been sending people for summers.
And side-by-sides too.
I don’t know.
You know, I.
We can always suggest to them.
I don’t know where they go.
So.
We’ll just embrace them.
Okay.
So that your visitation numbers are up.
At the park.
Yes.
For the month of July is that compared to last year or.
The last year.
Yeah.
That’s a reservation system in place last year.
July.
Yes.
Reservation system was.
Last year.
Or in July and August.
So this is no reservations against those patients.
Okay.
In this station.
Cool.
Awesome.
Currently both restaurants are closed for summer vacation.
July.
Was.
Wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be for revenues.
Yeah.
It was still really like hit and miss days.
Down by.
Up here.
Way down here.
Throughout the week.
So.
Kind of really hard to plan for that, but.
We’ll take the busy when we get it.
And.
Overall, like I said, 98.
The past meeting.
98 We’re still up.
Yeah.
So just so about flat for the year, but.
This.
All over.
Some more.
Folks and.
We try a little more like social media.
At 98.
We’ll see.
I’ve got some.
Social media.
We’ll see how that goes for the fall season.
As a professional situation.
And.
Yeah, that’s about it.
We’re on vacation.
Looking forward to the fall.
Let’s sunset.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Sunset grill.
Similar.
Brian.
Yeah.
Like I’ve seen a lot of weekend spikes.
So I think we’re getting a lot more.
Weekend travelers than we have been in the past.
The weekdays have been a little slower weekdays.
We’ve seen a bit of spikes.
I’m saying a lot more.
Kind of.
We can travelers and.
Seem to be a lot more international tourists this year than last year.
It’s very bizarre.
I mean, I’m talking about this tourism being done internationally.
A lot more international tourists this year than last.
Yeah.
That’s just.
That’s just an observation.
It’s not.
This is anecdotal.
This is not.
Like a fact.
You’re saying my experiences.
We’ve seen a lot more this year than last.
Jason, any comments?
No, not really.
From the city’s point of view, city’s just plugging along.
We’re still working on sidewalks.
You know, and trying to get.
We’re still trying to get sidewalks fixed on main street.
Really trying to push getting sidewalks fixed on main street.
And we’ve kind of had to go back to the drawing board.
We’ve been putting this bid out.
To.
Asked for contractors to bid on it or, you know, whatever.
And we’ve gotten zero.
So we’re, I think.
We’re going to have to wait and see.
Michael black and was.
Going to sit down with call contractors personally and see what could be done to make it more enticing or what needed to be done.
To start getting sidewalks repaired on main street.
So that’s.
At the top of the list.
Remember he’s working on it.
And that, so anyway.
There you go.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anyone that would like to have items in consideration for future agenda items.
Can you please email those just so that we don’t get rabbit hole here today.
If you have items, I would love to.
Collaborate so we can get those items on.
Or if you are, there are some people that want to have some ideas for workshops, but we’re kind of running late in the year.
So we want to make sure that we’re all on the same page.
I would love to have somebody make a motion for approval of the.
To have minutes for June 10th.
And if you need to see him, I.
Make a motion to approve.
And secondly, running tests.
Anybody opposed.
I guess I’ll abstain since I.
Okay.
I think that.
There you were never not a voting member.
So.
All right, everybody who will vote to approve those.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay.
And now we get to have an update from Madden media.
Who’s going to direct the music.
I’ll kick things off, but Leslie’s online and she’ll get the presentation.
But I just wanted to start by saying thank you to Leslie, the Madden team.
They’ve been onboarding.
Since the spring.
And it’s been really, really great.
The team came out in the spring.
And did an in-market visit.
And then we’ve been working.
We meet with them weekly.
I also want to thank, thank the board for empowering this office to make this, this decision.
It was, it’s been really, really great.
And there’s a lot of energy and we feel like we have a lot of support.
And Leslie’s going to review a lot of that.
But just from my perspective.
I feel like we get three or four people from the Madden team in every function that we have previously.
So an admin.
Leslie has a team of three creative data and media buying.
We just feel a lot more supportive.
So I wanted to report back to the board on that.
And I’m most excited about the staff in the deck that she’ll review.
That we put out 160 ads.
If you were, if you are more than 160.
So if you review what we’ve done in years previous, I don’t think we were anywhere close to that.
Maybe.
Few variations on one ad.
But they’re really targeting different groups, different messaging.
And they just have the capacity to track what’s working and change.
So we meet with them weekly on Wednesdays.
And then we were on email and have.
Ad hoc meetings throughout the week.
But just wanted to give that.
Report back to the board and hand it over to Leslie.
Who’s going to go through her deck.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Thanks, Nick.
I’m so excited to be here and show you guys some of the things we’ve been working on.
Just like Nick said, there has been a lot going on.
A lot of deliverables, a lot of back and forth, a lot of really great input from members of this board.
So just to kick things off and put things at a high level.
So a little bit of a reminder.
So it was made when we started to work together.
And how that really starts is us identifying our key business objectives.
So those key business objectives are meant to go somewhat above and beyond those key performance indicators.
So we want to make sure we’re not just thinking about what we want to do from a marketing standpoint.
But we want to think about what you as Moab need to do from an organizational standpoint.
So together, we really defined those key objectives as making sure that we were evolving the existing Moab brand.
Wanted to ensure that that felt welcoming, that it felt warm for visitors.
Focus on increasing visitation, increasing that length of stay.
We also know how important.
Yeah.
Leslie.
We can’t see your slides.
Oh, no.
Here we go.
It’s so great to see your face and nothing else.
Well, it is actually.
All right.
Perfect.
Do you see beautiful colors now?
No.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Thumbs up.
Okay.
Yes.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
So continue on those key business objectives.
So I wanted to focus on appealing to shoulder season as well.
But we really want to think about the entire system.
So it’s who are we targeting?
What is the creative that we’re showing that matches their needs, that matches their values?
And then making sure that they’re really landing on the right page on the website to be engaged, to convert.
So convert on the website can be maybe they’re getting more information around a guide.
Maybe they’re going from your website to a partner website.
So we really wanted to set what are those main objectives.
It’s very easy for us to get focused on click through rates and impressions.
So it’s very important that we take a step back to define those larger goals.
So in June, which feels like maybe it was yesterday and a year ago at the same time, we worked together to define that media plan.
So our media plan, as a reminder, is $2 million.
And how that breaks up and how that shakes out is we have around 250,000 that fall within what we call performance driven efforts.
So those are kind of those tried and true efforts.
So that’s when we’re talking about Google.
We’re talking about Meta in that Instagram place.
We’re talking about kind of that foundational media that we really build upon.
From there, we focused on travel endemic.
That’s really those levels or those areas of the media plan that are focusing on those traveler places.
And then lastly, we had a very large investment into OTAs, into content and into that international plan.
So just a little bit of a high level reminder of what that looks like with a lot of these campaigns launching in June all the way through this month.
So within that, we have noted here that there are 22 different channels that we’re focused on.
I feel like our creative team would love to tell you that means one ad per channel, and it most certainly does not.
So within that, this is to date when we worked on this a couple weeks ago, but we have more than 160 ads that we have created together.
Now that’s probably more like 180 plus.
And so while numbers are wonderful, what that really means is, again, we want to make sure that we’re connecting the right creative with the right audience at the right time.
So that is why you were seeing perhaps more creative than what you have seen in the past.
If we are putting that emphasis into making sure that we’re representing Moab and the community, we want to make sure that we’re doing that in the right way and we’re being really responsible with those dollars.
So the places that that media is being placed, again, is Google.
So that’s your paid search.
That’s where you’re seeing things when you’re getting on Google, trying to find things.
YouTube, additional meta and Google spots.
And then that’s where we’re getting into Expedia.
We’re getting into some of these different placements that also provide a lot of information for us to be able to update, be able to iterate and then also have some really great conversion and other metrics to to support.
So very high level what we’ve been focused on.
And then just a little bit of a reminder of who Madden is.
So Madden, we’ve been working in the travel and tourism industry for almost for just a little bit over 40 years.
And right now we have over 200 DMO partners that we work with.
One thing we try to do that separates us just a little bit from from some other agencies, is we really try to hire and work with people who have been in mixed shoes, who have been in alley shoes and have worked in that destination marketing environment.
So with that, our team, it’s a great balance between feeling like you have an extension of your team, but then also having some heavy hitters and experts that you can tap into.
So you guys are lovingly a part of Team GOAT, greatest of all time.
Of course, we’ll do that little reminder there.
But what that means is there’s about 27 people on our team.
And so those are the people who are working on your account day in and day out or getting to know you, getting to know your brand, getting to know the market itself, getting to know your visitors.
But then at any time, we have this full stack of team members across the organization that we can tap into that focus, maybe a little bit more on international or maybe they focus a little bit more on a different type of visitor.
So love that we have that balance of what feels like an extension of your team, as well as resources that we can tap into.
With that, our team really focuses on that mountain area.
So some of those key clients we’re working with is the state of Idaho, where the agency of record for them.
We work with Wyoming and quite a few of their partners within the state.
We’ve also started working more actively with Central Oregon, which is a regional DMO versus any kind of county or city, Grand County, Colorado.
Thank goodness you guys are the Moab Office of Tourism or that would be quite confusing for our team.
And then we also work with Visit Bozeman.
So just a little bit of a snapshot of some of those different some of the friends you have playing in the GOAT sandbox.
So wanting to transition there to talk a little bit more about the creative strategy that we have employed with this and very, very excited about this.
So just as it says here, you know, we do we believe that creative doesn’t start with style.
It starts with substance.
We’ve talked so much in the past about the research that we’ve done.
And that’s because we want to make sure that that messaging and we’re replacing those ads really connect with this with the consumer.
So every decision we make is really rooted in that strategy shaped by your brand story, guided by those goals that we talked about and informed by consumer insights.
So this means that we’re really working to make sure we listen.
Right.
You guys and your board are the experts in the destination.
We want to make sure we’re actively communicating and collaborating and that the creative really speaks to those things that we’re hearing from you and the consumer.
So with that, we want to make sure that those concepts are emotionally compelling, that they are behaviorally smart, again, trying to understand that consumer and that they’re built to move the needle and make sure that we are getting that travel, that we are getting that traveler in market.
So what does that mean?
We’ve really leaned in with this campaign, knowing that you guys are working on developing a larger brand.
What is that step forward?
That is building off a lot of what the team has done previously this year, but also making sure that we’re differentiating ourselves in the market.
So we’ve really leaned into this idea of the edge and I can read this whole thing.
But at the beginning, I also feel like it’s it encapsulates that pretty well.
Every traveler has an edge and Moab you find yours.
So some of the things that we heard from this team is, of course, you have this adventure piece, you have this living on the edge, but you also have this quirkiness.
You have this personality, right?
So we wanted to make sure that what we were doing with the creative really connected with that and connected with what we were hearing from you.
So the edge isn’t the end of the road in Moab.
It’s where the real journey starts.
This is a shift and it starts when you step into the edge.
So this is just reinforcing why why this concept continues to really push forward a lot of the goals that we have set forward.
So I know we’ve talked a little bit about goals before, but then transitioning here, I really want to get into the creative.
So how we start this is starting to talk with the team about what are some of those headlines that we feel like really connects to the consumer?
And then where does that kind of sit with who we’re targeting?
So love that there is definitely some kind of thoughtful, beautiful, creative that goes with this.
So some of these headlines between a rock and a real place.
Here, quiet feels louder.
Moab, the limit does not exist.
Find yourself right where it all falls away.
This is the edge.
Now begin.
Every trail leads somewhere new, especially within.
So tapping in again to that emotional, that personal emotional connection.
Stillness hits hard here.
The trail goes inward.
Find yourself where the rock breaks open.
The land doesn’t move.
You do.
Let’s think you might just one second.
I think that that might be just a spot that this board might want to just weigh in a little bit.
OK, perfect.
Just maybe allow for that’s OK with you.
Maybe just 30 seconds or a minute.
Just folks to kind of see what you guys think and just put on.
I certainly think the emotional attachment or representation is really big.
I think that’s what really draws a lot of people here that keeps people here and keeps them going back.
So finding ways to latch on to people’s emotions is always the best way to bring it back.
Right.
We started this in May and I don’t know how much exposure the board has had to all this.
We keep sending decks and this and that.
If you need to dive into anything deeper, we’ve asked Leslie to keep it at a higher level so that we don’t get in the weeds here.
But if there’s any additional creative that you want to look at, please offer your input.
And Leslie, I know we’re all super open to trying to move this, push this ball up the hill.
I just wanted to make sure that we stop for just a second.
It seems like it’s something that’s really important.
It’s something that people have wanted to make sure that they put on in the past.
And so I don’t know if you want to either, you know, look over these and send an email.
But I think that this is something that we want to pay attention to and make sure that this all feels right.
Right, more than anything else.
They always feel right.
They feel like they’re the truth that we want to put down.
I did notice there were some other sample headlines that were provided in the other presentations.
Are those going to be worked in or?
Sorry, I was going to…
Oh, Leslie, do you want to answer?
Yeah, so this is definitely just a sample of those headlines.
So there’s more headlines that we’re using.
This is kind of a jumping off point where other headlines still try to build off that emotion or duplicate that emotion.
But there is a little bit of variation and some of that is specific to characters or the vibe.
But this is really the foundation we’re jumping off of.
Thanks, Leslie.
Rebecca looks like she’s chimed in here.
She says, I have a lot of background noise.
So not on the mic, but fantastic job on these sample headlines.
I think these headlines truly carry emotion.
And that’s 100% what we need to show that Moab is not just a path through city.
It’s the destination.
There you go.
Echoing Alex.
Thank you, Rebecca.
I know you have a crying child.
Yeah, and then just real quick, real quick, just my little thought is that I think that you guys are doing a great job.
I feel like you guys are on the right path.
And I think that this idea that you’re sparking curiosity definitely is something that I’m interested in.
Leslie, I think that’s everything from the room if you want to continue.
Just keeping in mind that we’re…
the time.
Okay, perfect.
So we just wanted to provide a little bit of a sampling for what that creative looks like.
If you want to see those 160, 180 examples, I would love to send them your way.
But just wanted to kind of start.
So where we start really is kind of this like stylistic beginning where it’s okay, if we have full bleeds, if we have all this space, what does that look like?
So this is an execution that includes, you know, again, a sampling of those headlines.
But out here, the quiet is loud.
Love how this also kind of brings in and gets you a feel for the topography.
And then from there, another example.
So the limit does not exist, bringing in a little bit more of kind of the CTA or calling out the website.
Again, this is where we start.
And then you see some of these get a little bit more specific.
The trail goes inwards.
You can see we really, we want that text to feel like it has a life, right?
We don’t want to take away from the imagery.
But we also wanted to make sure that within what you’re seeing, you’re seeing yourself within the destination, right?
It’s lovely to see landscapes.
We want to make sure we’re making that personal connection with the landscape, whether that is through imagery, whether that’s through text, or whether that is through bold.
And here are some additional kind of creative pieces that are specifically tied to the bye.
I will try to play this.
I know sometimes that doesn’t always work well over Zoom, but this is showing the 30-second spot that we have been utilizing.
There’s music.
Also notice we review these, that they’re working with a lot of existing assets.
So we didn’t have an expensive photo shoot.
They’re developing the content and messaging since May, and they’re really relying on the photos that we have access to.
So I think if people spend time with our previous ads, and you can see these, they’ve done a really fantastic job aligning their strategy with the existing assets.
And as we move forward, that’s something that we can do even better.
We’re going out and shooting our own creative.
We’ll have a lot more control over what we’re seeing.
Does the office have a library of shots that we can give them to, that are proprietary, belong to us?
Yes.
Yeah, Allie’s been organizing that and combing through what our rights are to things and what we can use.
So we do now, thanks to Allie, and we’re building that.
But they have access to all of our assets.
You want to continue, Leslie?
Yes.
So this is an example of one of our buys.
So Tiki is a buy that we’re using that not only focuses on kind of connecting some of that content, but another thing that Tiki does really well is it helps understand exactly what the user is interested in.
So a part of this buy is a chat feature that rolls out where you can ask information about Moab.
Not only can you ask information, but we get a summary of the different things that people are looking at and are interested in.
So here, making sure that we’re not just thinking about the headlines, but we’re also thinking about the imagery that goes with it.
So roam the red rock, the Moab trails, desert done right.
So really wanted to bring you guys today some of that kind of, those ones that really did feel like it evoked an emotion and was taking up a little bit more space in doing so.
Again, this is an example of how some of these ads are showing up.
I’m giving a couple examples here.
What you’ll also see here is we talk a lot about what is the CTA, what’s the call to action based on where they are within their own planning.
So you’ll often see us saying explore Moab or find more, find your Moab.
And that’s really when we’re talking about those people who are still really in that inspiration phase.
They’re just getting to know you.
Whereas we get a little bit further down, we might see stronger calls to action.
We might see book now, we might see click, you know, that’s where we’re going to see a harder push for us to convert that user.
Find your adventure starts here.
Find yourself where it all falls away.
Love the integration here.
And again, these are the assets the team already has.
Love the integration here of being able to see in the rear view mirror.
Just again, something that can catch their eye, something that’s a little bit different.
Where the desert meets the sky, elevate your next adventure.
So again, you’re seeing people, you’re seeing that landscape really come alive and people being able to really feel what it would be like to be in the destination.
Add some color to your camera roll.
So as we talked earlier about some of those different audiences, we do see the photographer.
We do see some pieces in here that feel like a little bit more of a niche audience.
Meaning, no, that’s not where we’re putting the majority of the spend.
That’s not where we’re putting the majority of our efforts.
But we want to make sure that we’re thinking about those other audiences that really can connect to the destination.
And I think when you think about the photographer, when you think about the storytellers, right, that gives us an opportunity to have them tell some of your story, not just what we have in the buy.
Some great digital out of home.
Moab moves you.
Again, I feel like this image here almost kind of jumps at you with the way that the sky is behind it.
The limit does not exist.
Push your edge.
Again, begin the journey.
These are all very awareness, inspiration focused.
Here is where we’re getting more to your.
Yes, we have a question.
Can you say real quick how you’re tracking the conversion rate?
Oh, yes.
So, yes, it depends on the buy.
And so, so when we get to the OTAs, for example, with Expedia, how it works with them is you get very specific reporting that says, hey, you clicked on this ad you booked.
This is our return on ad spend.
So some of these buys, for example, this Epsilon, we’re going to get very specific data that says what their return on ad spend was.
Some of these other ones we’re more looking at.
So if we’re thinking about awareness, maybe we’re looking at engagement on the site or we’re looking at what was their time on the site.
So really where we look to find more of that information is more along kind of that call it travel endemic or strategic investments where we can make that strong tie to they saw the ad they showed up in market or they saw the ad and they booked travel.
So it kind of depends on tactic.
Thank you.
And then just kind of continuing here, we have the OTA buy showing how these kind of look within those different sizes that are given through these buys.
And then this is where you’re seeing those meta ads.
So, well, I think sometimes often people are kind of tired of social media.
I’m a little bit tired of meta.
But we see such great click through rates, meaning we’re seeing so many people engage with these ads, click on them and do really solid traffic to your website.
So important to think about that whole mix.
We want to make sure that we’re keeping them, keeping their attention.
But we also want to make sure we’re finding the right places to get them to go to the site and to learn.
Also, the positive feedback that we’re getting on these ads on social.
So I’ve noticed a lot of positive feedback.
Yeah, we’re excited about them.
And then again, I think what you’re seeing here, too, and hopefully what you’re seeing and why we wanted to show so many of the creative is you’re seeing these come to life and these different shapes and these different forms.
You’re seeing us being able to tell a different story and connect to a different audience here, which I think is this is a really good example of that within one buy.
So a zero is our straight kind of display programmatic stillness hits hard to every traveler has an edge.
Find yours.
And this is the last one we’re showing, but this is a little bit more of some of these buys feel very one to one, right?
You’re purchasing banner ads.
You’re you’re doing something along those lines, but a lot of them are a little bit more custom where they have more content.
Right.
So not only are we trying to push the ads you’re seeing here, but we’re trying to bring content to them.
So just a lot of kind of neat opportunities.
We’ll have more reporting to share with you guys the next time we meet.
So I’m excited to be able to share that.
But any thoughts or feedback, anything you guys want to bring up?
It’s great.
Thank you so much for taking such good care of us.
We’re so excited.
This is, you know, representing Moab has been such a hard job for us.
Thank you for making it so easy.
Thank you also for taking part in the branding session as well for being part of that, because I know that you’re already working with Camp Stories can be important for all of all three of you to be working together.
And so far, the relationship is going great.
And I look forward to, you know, this next step.
Yeah, definitely.
We do too.
Leslie, you’re welcome to stay with us, but don’t feel obligated.
We’re just going to go through a bunch of administrative things and Camp Stories will be introducing themselves next if you are at a stopping point.
Oh, Leslie, you’re muted.
I think you’re muted.
Are you still seeing my screen?
Yes.
Okay, well, let’s see if I can get that to go away.
The contour is actually on the next.
It’s on the end of attachment.
Oh, you know what?
You can’t leave yet.
We’re just going to introduce Camp Stories and then we’re going to go to the contour piece.
Apologies.
No, I just.
In relation to presenting that.
Okay.
Hang in here for just a second.
Thanks.
All right, moving on to the next.
Obviously, guys, Madden is a critical piece of the advertising budget.
And so if you have additional questions, comments, please send them our way.
Next item, we’re going to introduce Camp Stories, our public relations agency with a brief update.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so we’ve been working with Camp Stories since like early June, I think.
And they’re awesome.
This is really exciting.
I don’t believe our department has ever had a PR agency before.
And so it’s really wonderful to see what kind of sway we can have in the journalism media world.
And people are really excited to work with Camp Stories.
So yeah, go ahead, Campbell.
Thank you.
It’s great to meet everybody.
I know we’ve met some of you.
I’m Campbell.
We’re Camp Stories.
Everything we do is really predicated around deep emotional connection to the places that we choose to represent.
We’re very picky.
Like Madden had mentioned, we’re thrilled, obviously, to represent Moab.
Our history personally goes way back in Moab as well.
I’ve been camping with my dad was the initial time that I was introduced to Moab in the late 80s.
And we’ve kind of grown up with the destination with my dad and then as broke college kids and then now as families coming.
And so we’ve seen a lot of different iterations of Moab as well.
We specialize in travel, hospitality, tourism, outdoor brands, kind of at every level.
At the continent level, we’ve worked with Tourism Australia and Bermuda.
We worked with a lot of outdoor brands as well, REI, Leatherman.
We like to think we come from an authentic place.
I think some people know this about me, but some don’t.
I’m a former in a former life, I should say, a backcountry guide, a Knowles graduate.
I was a professional cyclist for a number of years, a mountain biker and a cyclocross racer.
And we really try to bring that authenticity with us to how we tell stories.
Court, you’re on mute.
Hi, everyone.
Courtney Halsom with Camp Stories.
So I have a deep background in advertising, connected, integrated campaign planning.
And I have worked on many big and small brands from Aspen to Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Ford, Louis Vuitton, Hennessy for years.
I led the Starbucks business for six years, working on some of their campaigns.
And really where the magic happens for me is how do you find the authentic spirit of a place, of a brand, of a story?
And how do you unlock that and project that into the world in the right way?
And I think that’s where we really excel at Camp Stories in finding those deep rooted, amazing stories and uncovering those tales.
And we’re going to talk a little bit about how we approach that.
And that really is all about character first, story first.
And just to echo Campbell’s comments, couldn’t be more thrilled to be working on the Moab business.
We’re having so much fun so far and more and the best stuff is yet to come.
We also have on our team that are not on the call today, Lindsay Hall, who is based in, well, Texas, but also van life.
You might find her just cruising around in her van and you never might know where she is.
She works from the road and she’ll be meeting us in Moab in a few months.
And we’re also excited to welcome to the team, Jenica Villamore, who started yesterday, actually.
She’s a media relations supervisor.
She has a background in broadcast and storytelling.
And she’s going to be a wonderful addition to the team.
She’s based out in Portland, Oregon, and we’re excited to get her out to Moab very soon.
All right.
So we wanted to jump really quickly into I know we only have like 10, 15 minutes.
So we’re going to try to breeze through a lot of content.
Strategic approach wise, we want to give you just a quick refresh on what we’ve been working on.
This is not all of it.
This is a consolidated version since we have just a few slides to share.
We’re going to talk a little bit about what we’ve been doing with earned media, the conversations that we’ve been having, how we’re pitching Moab, what those stories look like, goal setting.
And then we want to talk a little bit more about the activations that Ali teased a little bit earlier.
So I’m going to kick it off with PR goals.
So our PR strategy really is designed to fuel Moab’s year round economy.
That means boosting summer and winter visitation specifically.
We already know we’re all right in the spring and the fall.
Right.
So how can we elevate in the summer and the winter while helping the destination meet its goal of a 6 percent increase in transient room tax revenue?
What does that mean and what do we highlight?
Accessible adventure is one.
Right.
There’s something for everyone.
That’s flip flops to hiking boots.
That’s people with limited accessibility issues.
Moab has something for everyone.
And we’re telling a lot of stories in a lot of different ways so that we can unlock that.
Also increasing visitation frequency.
There’s so much to do.
So come back and try something new next time.
Increasing length of stay.
Stay longer to experience more.
And then going really deep into art, culture, culinary and history.
I teased this a little bit earlier, but again, talking about unlocking the soul and the spirit of a place.
A place is really all about the people that make it magical.
Right.
So it’s all about those characters that the real people behind the scenes, behind the businesses, propelling the community, the people that make up the community.
So Campbell’s going to talk a little bit about our character first philosophy.
Yeah, it’s something that obviously is unique to each place.
And we’ve had some incredible interviews with folks already.
And it’s funny, as we’ve gotten stories in the media, we’ve had more people reach out proactively.
We had originally planned to do about one of these a month, but we’re probably we’re doing a lot more of them than that, which is great.
It’s netted us incredible storytelling opportunities.
It also doubles is media training for us.
And so as we’re interviewing these folks, it allows us to identify who is going to be great in front of the camera.
And maybe somebody who might not be as good in front of the camera, which is fine and would be better for written word or for podcast.
And so we are developing what we call a living pitch document.
And it’s just an ongoing sort of story board that we’ve created.
You can see some of the folks that we’ve connected with already and how those have already netted some great stories.
Just Cirx from Paddle Moab was fascinating.
A small business owner in town who has kind of put his entire life on the line to buy permits to run the river.
For some of these people, that means mortgaging their house to buy these things.
And they’ve invested a lot.
We take great honor in telling their stories and doing justice to their stories as well and doing it right.
That’s very important to us as well.
Rebecca McAllister, obviously everybody knows she’s incredible.
She has been a conduit to so many other people in the destination.
She’s amazing.
We’re really looking forward to everything that she has in store at the press as well.
We’re using that for some of our ongoing outreach, which we’ll go into in a minute.
Faith Dickey also Courtney had mentioned accessible adventure.
I don’t know how many people on the board know this, but she is doing a bunch of extreme disabled adventure, which, yes, evidently is a thing.
She’s taking some people that have spinal cord injuries and she’s taking them out thousands of feet above the valley floor and explaining that she lets these people lead in terms of their disability.
And so every single situation is different as she’s bringing these people out.
We actually confirmed a big out a far magazine story on her and on this.
I don’t even think she knows that yet.
But directly from that interview that we had with her, Cassandra also opening Desert Tropics Health Bar.
That’s also opening in September.
And so we’ve seen this sort of flood of new things opening toward the end of the year.
And then upcoming Aaron and Ryan Byrd and then the Film Commission as well, which I’ll talk a little bit more about in a second.
Yeah.
And that’s just who we’ve been able to speak with so far.
You know, the list is growing and we’ll be building as we go and adding on so that we can continue to have that infinite cycle of stories to be able to always be pitching.
Yes.
So this by no means entails everything that we’re pitching, but it’s some of the things that we’re going out with.
I think something to that’s important to understand in terms of how earned media works is things happen well in advance for the most part.
The Wall Street Journal story, which was somebody alluded to earlier, was kind of an outlier.
It’s pretty rare that we get a big story like that that comes together in three to four weeks.
A lot of times we’re working many months in advance.
And so, like, I had a call with voters this morning who’s working on their where to go list.
I had a call with Bloomberg last week, Conde Nast Traveler.
They’re all working on their January stories right now.
And so we have an eye toward the really long lead stuff.
That’s where to go in 2026.
Typically, those are pegged on big news hooks, new reasons to visit a destination you might know or a destination that you formerly associated with something.
It’s interesting perception of Moab when we’ve reached out to a lot of journalists is that, you know, I haven’t been there in the past because I’m not a camper or I’m not a hardcore adventure.
And that’s we would much rather there be a perception that exists than none at all.
We love to take perception and kind of turn it on its head or create sort of a new fold to it.
And so that’s been really fun.
We pitched, obviously, the development of hotels.
We’re also pitching a big female led Renaissance of makers right now.
There are tons of incredible female business owners in Moab.
That’s been a story that journalists have been very interested in as well.
Adventure and accessibility.
I’d mentioned Faith Dickey as well.
I think this idea that you don’t have to be a rock climber.
You don’t have to be a backpacker.
You can go out on these incredible UTV tours.
We have somebody coming in September from Portland.
His name is Winston Ross, who writes for Overland Journal.
And so making sure that we’re being really holistic in terms of how we’re telling stories and making sure also that the people that we’re bringing identify similarly to the people who are telling these stories.
If we’re telling an indigenous story about indigenous groups and arches, we have an indigenous media list as well that we’re utilizing.
We feel like stories are so much stronger when the storyteller is deeply identifying with the people who they’re writing stories about film tourism.
I’ve heard come up quite a bit.
You know, what’s interesting is the oldest film commission in the world.
We feel like we have a lot of runway in film tourism.
There are tons of stories to tell there.
And a lot of the people who we’ve gone out to about these stories had no idea how many things had been filmed in Moab.
And so I think that’s a fun one that we’ll get tons of stories around as well.
And then obviously road trips, but the idea that we want people to really settle down in Moab and stay there for a few days.
A really key component of how we do that is making sure that we’re going into itinerary stories.
But instead of a stop on your road trip itinerary, it’s really key that we’re telling two, three, four day stories in Moab.
And the idea that you’re not going to run out of things to do in this place that helps people stay for a while as well.
I think it will also help with seasonality.
We had alluded to this a little bit earlier.
Hopefully everybody saw this.
This was great.
We were able to interview a bunch of different stakeholders, partners, business owners in Moab.
This is exactly what we wanted to focus on was making sure people knew that the seasonality that currently exists in Moab no longer is relevant.
There’s hotels to stay in.
It may be too hot to camp in the summer, but there’s incredible hotels to stay in.
You can cool off in the river.
We’ve also painted this picture of nocturism among outfitters.
It’s worked out really well here.
It’s rare, but sometimes we write a pitch where the headline ends up as the headline in the paper.
This was exactly that, and so we were thrilled about this.
Good job.
Some of the people who were included in that were Karen from National Park Service, who is great.
She’s amazing at working with media.
We’ve loved working with her.
She’s super quick.
We worked with tons of national parks before.
In our experience, this has been an incredible experience compared to some of the past dealings with them.
She’s just extremely responsive, which we love.
Rachel Croft at the Hoodoo was great.
Rebecca, as I mentioned, Josh, the Moab Museum.
I didn’t mention, but we were in Moab a couple weeks ago, and the journalist, typically a journalist for a story like the Wall Street Journal, goes, experiences it.
Stacey, who wrote that story, is based in Brooklyn.
She was not available, and so uniquely, we kind of lived this story ourselves, pitched it to her, and then we FaceTimed her, and she kind of wrote that story through our own experience, and it came out really nicely.
Some others on our hit list that have run as well, the Best of the Southwest, 15 Southwest Pool Resorts, San Francisco Gate, talking about the hold on timed entry.
Yahoo!
ran a great story with data from hotels as well as the national parks on deals at the hotels, and it was similar to the Wall Street Journal story on why summer is actually the best time to come.
And then I mentioned earlier, Noctourism is another one that we’re working on also, that we’ve got a bunch of leads on, and then Time Out included us there, and then the Points Guy, Best Red Rock Parks in Utah as well, without the crowds.
Court, did you want to hit the activations, or I guess I’m taking the first one here.
Yeah, I mean, just to kind of premise, these are a couple of things that we have presented to Allie and Mick that we think are really great places to play.
We’ve got to have hooks.
We’ve got to have angles to continue to have news to make the news and earn those stories, and so we want to walk you through three particular activation opportunities that we are recommending moving forward with.
Yeah, so the first is kind of holiday the Moab way.
A lot of times what we do is we take something that plays really big in news media that gets covered massively every year.
We take it, and we turn it on its head, and that’s an example of this, and so we call this newsjacking, and this would be how we basically newsjacked an annual holiday spectacle.
Every winter, the Rockefeller Center tree becomes a media spectacle.
A towering conifer fell, trucked across the country, lifted by cranes, wired with lights, surrounded by fencing.
The coverage is glowing.
The story, not so much.
It’s basically a 70-foot beautiful spruce cut from somebody’s backyard, animals displaced.
We hear about every year, carbon burned.
Somehow, the act of removing this tree is framed as a celebration.
Nobody’s ever newsjacked this that we’ve seen, and so this is kind of our idea to paint a really positive, sustainable twist on this story, and so in Moab, we’re offering something quieter, wilder, and more meaningful.
So, just beyond town, there’s short trails, obviously.
We’re looking at a couple different places here.
We’d originally been looking at places with the BLM.
Now we’re talking with Dead Horse, and the idea here is that there’s a PSA of sustainability behind this.
A lot of these trees, unfortunately, are cut down or trimmed for campfires.
People don’t realize that these trees are thousands of years old in some cases, and so this is our way to sort of bring sustainable awareness to some of these trees that are rooted in time and take what we’ve seen at Rockefeller Center, turn it on its head with this sustainable sort of tree of our own.
We’ve also talked to Goal Zero BioLite, which is a Utah company, a sustainable power bank company, who is very excited about partnering with us.
They’ve told us that they’ll give us anything we need in kind.
That would be solar-powered, sustainable banks that would power the lights.
We also understand, obviously, that because of its dark sky status, we need to be careful with the lights that we use, and so that’s something that we’re also working out with Goal Zero as well.
It’s a cool campaign.
It also drives, again, back to one of those goals, attention and visitation on a time period, the winter, when there is less.
Right, showing up in the media in the wintertime with new news and a different kind of Moab-style way of celebrating the holiday, which we love.
The other one is popping up Moab Makers and More.
We talked a lot about Moab Made, some of the chefs in Moab.
Traditionally, what a lot of PR agencies do is they send a team out to New York, go meet for desk sides.
The problem is that doesn’t always net the best results, so how do we magnetize the media in an irresistible made-in-Moab pop-up experience?
Really, these desk-side tours have become commonplace.
Editors are pulled in a million directions.
It’s really hard to nail them down.
You don’t want to take up too much of their time.
How do we deliver something to them that really enhances and elevates their day and their experience, and how do we bring Moab to them in a way that connects with them?
To attract top editors, we really want to take that desk side to the next level.
What we mean by that is producing a multi-day Moab Maker culinary and musical cultural media immersion.
It’s in place of that traditional meeting.
We run a space in markets of influence.
Right now, we’re looking at Denver and Salt Lake City, bringing Moab partners in possibly three categories.
We’re still nailing down what exactly this looks like, but we might have a grouping of makers, some culinary pros, and then perhaps some adventure purveyors that are bringing those experiences, those crafts, that food to life in this space.
Media is invited to rolling meetings.
They can schedule times with us to pop in.
They experience the best of Moab.
They eat.
They drink.
They get gifted amazing Moab-made items.
It really ensures better attendance, stronger relationship-building opportunities, and really deep storytelling offerings that are hyper-tailored to the individual media.
We might look at jewelry and perhaps personalized gifts or making crafts with media on site.
Throughout that event, we’re going to have culinary proposed perhaps preparing and serving past delicacies.
Maybe we get into a demonstration kitchen.
Really, it’s all about bringing the spirit and the soul of Moab to life in this place and allowing the media to see it firsthand and experience how amazing it is, and then maybe invite them on a trip.
For those people who can’t all get there, why not bring it to them?
We’ve activated this in the past with destination clients similar to this.
As Courtney mentioned, it’s basically bringing Moab to another place where there’s a broad range of journalists and immersing them in the experience of Moab in that place.
We’ve had enormous response to this as well.
It’s also a great way to bring our partners, expose them to media directly so they have that experience.
A lot of times, they walk away with incredible media relationships also.
Another nice part about this being really holistic.
As Courtney also mentioned, in terms of culinary makers, artists, it really lets us show every facet of Moab as opposed to just this adventure destination.
Really, a 360 experience for these folks.
I think we’re actually at the last piece here.
I think our last suggestion is just to hit – this is our most boring idea, but it’s a media event that we recommend attending because it’s important that we’re connecting with the right people in January.
So, Campbell, do you want to hit on that?
Then I think we can wrap it.
Yes.
IMN is International Media Marketplace.
It takes place in January annually in New York City.
This is something that we recommend me attending personally with Allie.
We meet typically with 20 people in sort of speed dating fashion, and we present Moab ideas.
It’s a great way to line up stories throughout the year.
We’ve had great success with this in the past.
And that’s all we’ve got.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you for the introduction.
Does anybody on the board have any critical questions that they would like to ask?
I just want to mention there was nothing mentioned about Brand New State Park, which I think should be part of the picture.
Also, America 250.
Next year is a massive year for this country, and America 250 is something that I think we can capitalize on as a destination.
Good point.
Excellent.
One other thing, too, is when we’re talking about sometimes culture and history, just remember that we are a mature destination, and adventure is part of our culture and history.
I think that we need to make sure that we’re mentioning that.
We don’t just have four-wheel drive trails.
We have trails that were built during the uranium mining.
We have great history that goes along with all that, and I just think that that should be mentioned as well.
Any other comments?
Awesome.
All right.
Thank you very much, Campbell.
Noted on all that.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
I’m going to turn the time over for item number six to Wendell because he is.
Did someone want to speak about the Contour Airlines?
Well, okay.
Sure.
You said you wanted me to go back to her.
Okay.
Look, you know what?
We’re going to skip item six.
Go back.
Not skip, but we’re going to go back to Leslie about the Contour.
Keep me on track, too.
About the Contour presentation.
That would be wonderful.
Great.
Thank you, Leslie.
Yeah, yeah, perfect.
So we’re working on scheduling some time with both Contour and the airport to walk through kind of the finalization of this.
So we have shared with them our plan.
We’re just kind of waiting for feedback.
So that overall spend that we have is $50,000.
So how we are recommending breaking that out is having 25,000 of that go to Expedia.
The push there would definitely be that booking intent, connecting with a high-intent audience.
We would also have additional support within Meta, so still in that Facebook and Instagram piece.
We’ve carved out a little bit of Facebook and Instagram to account for the billboard part.
Yeah, so you can see that we’ve accounted for billboards there as well.
And then last year, part of this buy was for Travel Zoo.
And so we wanted to build off what had been done last year as well.
So we’re really focusing on kind of these three tactics, so a bigger emphasis in what we’re doing with Expedia and Travel Zoo.
Again, trying to make sure that we’re raising awareness, driving consideration.
You’re seeing this fall a little bit more kind of awareness, as well as the lower end of the funnel trying to get bookings.
So that’s really our main effort right now, just waiting to get some feedback on that.
And then we will get rolling on that through production.
I didn’t see in the creative anything for the billboards.
I know Mick is super motivated to see some of that and looking to see what the objectives, the goals for all of that for the billboard focus is.
Yeah, so we had provided some information around the billboard and some different pieces, just waiting for that to get approved.
Once we get approval on that, that’s when that cues our production team to then build that.
So that’s just kind of where we are in the process.
But the creative’s not included in this deck that we’re looking at now?
No, the creative’s not included in that, correct.
How long would it take to get the billboard up once it’s approved?
I think like a month is reasonable.
It’s administered at a price.
Two months.
Last billboard got done in two months.
So it really just needs to connect with the airport now?
I think this might be new to them too, advertising and marketing.
It sort of turned it over to us.
Right.
And they’re okay.
They’ve given us the money and the go-ahead.
What I think we need to do is talk about what is the goal for the billboard so that we can then direct Madden for what we want them to see creative-wise.
Because, man, it was surprising how long it took.
Finally, Alex came up with some creative that we could all agree on.
So the quicker we get our goals and objectives for what the billboard wants to be, I think the easier it will be for Leslie’s crew to do that.
Does anybody have a different idea?
I would like to choose a subcommittee of three people that have the bandwidth this month to be able to look at some of those things.
What do you feel?
You want to lead on that and Leslie, do you have the dates that we proposed to contour?
We have to run this by contour.
So that committee could just join us.
I think it’s next week.
This is this week.
And so you had some updates that basically we had sent this over.
Hey, let us know if you have any questions.
We’re happy to walk through this.
So, I can check back in, or maybe try and give them a call.
So, yeah, and then those on the airport board, if we do need, we do need contour to attend.
That’s that’s their requirement.
So, we had proposed.
Thursday, I do, I do 2 or 3 on Thursdays or 2 PM.
15 are the dates that you have to be Thursday or or the 15th.
Now, since there’s 15 years, so.
Yes, well, the 14th and 15th.
Yeah, how much longer on the contour contract is there expires next next September.
So, is it worth putting up a billboard?
Well, the billboards that we have would probably not say daily flight or whatever to Salt Lake and.
Denver, because we don’t know what the next airport will be, or the airline will be.
I would propose even talking about what’s going on inside the airport and options for activities that are going on, but that’s not unilateral.
It needs to be discussed.
Do you want to be part of this?
I don’t have time this week.
I know that’s I’m just checking to see.
Yeah, I’ve got Howard who’s on the board and we’ve got I would like to be part of it.
Wendell.
Okay, Jason.
There you go.
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like, they’re paying for it.
Yeah, I mean, like, trying to get for example, trying to get them chasing.
You know, Alex used to be slated into the.
Airline scene, so I think every help all the help that we can give them is.
So, I just, I just followed up right now.
I added and Jason to the email asking Stephen and Riley, they can contact us.
All right, so we’ve got Wendell, Howard, Jason and Brian on our subcommittee.
If you guys want to connect with all of them.
Yeah.
So this way we can really get momentum going and you don’t have to go to jail.
All right, keep me straight.
Are we still now ready to go?
Okay.
Thank you so much.
All right.
I think I’m going to thank you so much.
Leslie, we’ll get back to you this week and everybody can.
All right, you go ahead, Wendell.
The next item is the strategy and branding committee.
And I think I don’t have the online version.
Yeah.
All we have is a whole item here, but okay.
Yeah.
The branding and he’s a finalist.
Yeah, well, I’m going to defer to make, but I just want to say in advance before introducing, because he’s the 1 who organized the whole process for this.
It was a big committee.
It was managing a lot of people to commissioners.
The somebody from the Utah office of tourism, some of us on the board, Quinn Hall and Gabe and yeah, so there was a, it was a big committee who is having 39 submissions.
I think it was 36 submissions and over a 100 questions or 200 or how many questions do you have to answer as part of that?
It was a huge.
It was a huge undertaking.
And I just want to give credit to make for an incredibly well, read the process throughout in terms of the selection committee.
The whole process was flawless.
He had to answer quite a few very interesting questions, and there were some standouts and there were some that were very quick knows, I think, from all of us.
And so the way the process happened, there was a score sheet we all reviewed all 36 of the applicants and individually submitted our score cards to make.
And from that, there was a lot of similarities, so we could each see each other scores.
And so we saw there was a very clear, distinct.
Group of 5, really that we all agreed on, and from that 5, we whittled it down in this room to 3.
And then the next process after that was having an in person meeting, which the agencies themselves appreciated because they said, this is very unusual.
Like, a lot of times they do everything online and to be able to sit here and present in front of you.
And which I must say that helped us immensely to hear from them directly.
They gave us a really good sense of who they are as people, how they work with people and make handle the process.
Fantastic.
I think from that, we do have a strong 3 contenders from the 3.
I think we’ve got strong to that.
We kind of all agree with the top of the 2.
and then from that, I think there have been some further questions that we need to do some more due diligence.
But in terms of the discussion, and we’ve always had a chance to review them.
If anybody has any thing they’d like to say about any of the.
3 that were presented, and now’s the time to say what you liked or didn’t like.
Do you need any decisions by this board?
So you can go ahead and make the selection.
So that we can empower you to.
So, that’s I think we probably will have to do a vote here today to give authorization to approve.
To send to the commission, but before that, we need to just to have a discussion on what you think of the finalist and if there’s any questions, or if you didn’t like any of that.
So the 2 that were the preferred of the 3.
I don’t know if that’s something we, you know, I don’t know if there is a preference that we should discuss.
Um, I think the next step is for the committee to meet and decide what we’re going to do.
I think this, we can go back and look by this board approved of the selection committee and the timeline and the RMP previously.
So, I think it’s just good practice to kind of re, raise it and give you guys an update on where we are and what our next steps, but I think they’ve already sort of put it on.
So we can put on that again.
I can review a little bit of.
The process, from my perspective, we understand that this is a lot of money and that we want to make the decision.
Well, and we’d rather slow walk, but not slow.
I mean, we want to make sure we’re responsible.
But that we’ve included the board in anything that they want to know about.
We’re also pretty pressed for time here because we’ve got 32 minutes left and so if you will go ahead and share, I think it’s really critical to share.
The, yeah, the, what you’ve went down, what we’ve all went down and go for it.
Yeah, just really quickly.
I’m sorry.
So, just to give you guys a little background to when we talk about brand, it’s important to understand what brand me.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, what brand means is we really want this to be a very community with the, with something that community can be proud of.
It’s not just a brand that we want to throw out there to get to us or what the community problem.
So, yeah, and that’s what I was going to say, too, for those that aren’t familiar with this project, we included the RFP in the packet.
So, I’d encourage anybody here to reread it or online, it gives a really broad overview or specific overview of what we’re doing.
But like Wendell said, you know, Allie and I joined about a year ago, and there hasn’t ever been a really big branding project.
We’ve inherited all of these things that we do.
We haven’t really looked at our message and the audiences that we’re going after.
So, this is really an effort to kind of get everything that we do to talk to each other and come up with a strategic direction of what we want to do.
So, I encourage people to revisit the RFP if you have questions about what a branding project is and what the scope of the work is.
Wendell gave a good overview of the process, but I’d also add that there were a thousand pages of RFP response.
So, everybody listed on our selection committee, hats off to them, because it was a huge time commitment to read all of these things and consider the agencies that all really wanted to win this bid.
Like Wendell said, we picked agencies that really looked at the scope of work and gave us a really thoughtful proposal and almost started to do the work and tell us where to go.
And we were really impressed with those people.
Three stood out, and we invited them to come to Moab to present.
So, they came last week.
Also notable because people took time out of their busy lives to come here and pitch for the work.
One is a boutique firm from Colorado, and they work with Snowmass in Santa Fe.
That’s Vladimir Jones.
And as Wendell said, these pitches are in the board packet, so you can review those and we offer comments if you have any takes on those.
The other, Voxy Sozo, has worked with Visit Bend in Seaside, Oregon, and has deep consumer product packaging experience.
They do really fun and creative work, and we thought that that experience, mixed with their experience with Bend and other destinations, could work well for us.
And the last is a team that is Campcore Tourists, who worked with STRUCK, which is an ad agency in Salt Lake City, and was involved with the Mighty Five, the iconic Utah tourism campaign and subsequent campaigns, and did the rebranding for Field Station in Town.
So, very different choices, but good choices.
The next steps are for the selection committee to meet.
We’re going to meet later this week, and we’ll make a decision.
And coming out of that meeting, we’ll bring the decision to the Commission and then move forward with contracting.
So like Wendell said, the proposals for the three firms that we interviewed are in the board packet, and we wanted to give you guys the opportunity to to weigh in, if you have any comments.
Just based on this timeline, we have to kind of give you to go ahead, because we don’t have another board meeting before you’re supposed to go to the Commission.
Yeah, I mean, we can be flexible, too.
I think that this timeline, you know, we conceived of this project soup to nuts when we launched it, and we can be flexible, so if there’s something that needs to be raised, there’s no reason to, you know, move at the appropriate speed.
If you speak to the people factor just a little bit, because that was the only thing that wasn’t included in the packet, was the one that stood out, like, Yeah, I think that I really want to Yeah, I grilled them all from the bottom of my head.
I think it did.
It did.
And, you know, the, if I had to say, you know, when we talked to Vladimir, they had a It’s extensive.
Yeah.
They had, well, you know, and the question that we were really asking is, is we were trying to get community bonding and what their process is going to be to get that community bonding.
And Vladimir, I mean, the way they presented, kind of came off, it came off like a love letter.
That really just, to me, that just really didn’t hit, you know, as they kind of went, and I wasn’t really, myself, I wasn’t impressed, you know, you can get other people’s opinion on them.
Moxie Sosa was very well put together, and it looked like kind of like an organized mission, right?
And, you know, they handled all the questions, I think, very well when we get into them.
Camp Stories, I think they are very important, right?
I mean, out of everybody, I think they had the most aha moments, right?
It seemed like they would be the ones that went swing for the fences.
So I think you might be looking, in my opinion, kind of what I looked at two people I thought that Moxie Sosa was a very, very safe bet, and I think they’re going to be a very sound agency to work with.
And I think that we might, you might see Camp Stories Tourist be a little bit more on the edge and be looking a little bit.
Right, they were, they were looking for something, this would be a big client to, you know, biggest client, so they were hungry, and I thought they put in some good work.
Very visually, they were, they were very visual in their presentation, as opposed to Moxie Sosa, who kind of relied on their past experience with FEND, and Vladimir.
I did like Vladimir, it did seem like they had the best structure, as far as strategic, and they did have a good strategic structure, so they have that kind of plan all rolled out.
I think those were probably the biggest points that I got from from talking to them.
And just very quickly, everything that Madden is going to be doing, everything that, it’s all dependent on, so that’s why we want to make sure we make the right choice, because this is going to be shaping the way Moab is seen by everybody, locals, tourists, everyone, so that’s where we’re taking our time, that’s where we’re going to have yet another meeting, because there’s still some due diligence to do on them to make sure we’re making the right choice.
I think it’s really critical to point out that the questions that were asked by the group were very focused on trying to find a way that the community was going to be happy with the brand, not just outfitters, not just government, not just little esoteric little places here and there.
This has to be, and that’s going to take some real magic, but I feel like we’ve really tried to go deep and ask questions that people can be proud of the message that we’re sending out together, and I’m not saying we have all the answers, but I feel like that was a really critical piece of where we were trying to go with our brand.
Laura did a good job, exactly.
The questions were based on, I mean, an angel of questions, who is Moab?
That’s a very hard question, right?
Because Moab is something different to everybody at a certain time period.
You know, when you came here, Moab was the ideal location, right?
And how are you going to make it that Moab is that?
It encompasses all of those people, so, yeah.
So, do we need to have a vote to authorize the subcommittee to be able to arm?
I think I would call for a motion.
Are you all comfortable with that?
Sure, I was going to make a motion to give the authority to the selection committee to choose the branding agency out of the three finalists and allow them to take it through the commission.
Do we have a second?
I’ll second that.
Okay.
And as I know that this still has to go to the commission, so this is for us to be able to get to the commission.
I just want you to kind of have to come back to us again.
Exactly.
I’m on board.
Those who vote, all in favor.
Thank you very much.
I am not on my game.
All in favor.
And Rebecca, are you on?
Yeah, Jason had a thumbs up.
Oh, Jason did.
Well, Meg, I heard you’ve been running a PR agency since the time that you walked into the door for the county, so congratulations.
Okay, who’s got the update?
Oh, for Global Markets.
Yes, that’s me.
We’ve got a really custodial here.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, so I tried to outline all of our Global Markets efforts because it’s kind of five arms and so it can get really confusing.
I’ll go through this fast.
I won’t go through everything.
But basically, we do three things with the Utah Office of Tourism, and then we do two Global Markets efforts on our own.
So sales missions, we have five upcoming.
The UOT has a different fiscal year.
They’re like July to July.
So this is on their fiscal year.
But we’re going to the UK, France, China, and then we have two reverse missions where they come to us.
So that’s India and Germany.
On location missions, Ben Padreo went to a Benelux mission last fall.
And so it looks like five to six days and you’re in market and you’re doing one-on-one meetings.
This is very guided by the UOT.
So Emma Queenan will put together a group presentation where we’ll have like five or six slides to explain Moab and then you get to do these like one-on-one meetings and go to lunch and network and things like that.
And so the reverse missions are on us to plan.
So when India comes here in October, they’re going to come to Moab on the 9th.
We’ve got them hotel rooms.
They’ll do a little local sightseeing.
They only have an hour.
So TBD, what that’ll look like.
And then we’ll get them dinner.
And then the next day, they’ll have breakfast.
We’ll do a little introduction.
We get 45 minutes to do a destination presentation.
These are a lot of people who already know Moab.
And so we really want to do something fun, maybe have like a local guide present or speak to history or something interesting.
And then we get a short break and then we have one-on-one meetings with eight Indian buyers.
And this is when we can invite up to six partners to join these sessions.
So it’s almost like IPW, like everybody would have a different table and you’re doing one-on-one meetings.
And those are 10 minutes each.
And then we all have lunch and then they do some hotel site inspections and then they leave to go to the next destination.
I must say there were some very specific requests.
Yes.
For India.
Requests for like who can chat with what they want.
Yes.
Could you send me a list of hotel specifications so that people have all the best?
Yes, definitely.
I would love to work with you on that, Cora, because I still haven’t had time to like email everyone and say, you know, who wants to participate in this?
Because I’m trying to organize it so that I only have to send one and say like, here are all the places where you can participate in our global markets.
And it’s taken a little bit to get those organized.
And Utah Office of Tourism is very specific, as Wendell was saying, about who is allowed based on their pre-vetting criteria.
So we just, I don’t want people to feel uninvited.
But if they don’t already have some of those criteria met, then they’re limiting.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then we have fan trips.
Everybody wants to come to that.
So I work with Ben Mangelsdorf.
Yeah, on the top one, on like the 45 minute presentation.
I don’t know if you know who Blaine Reniger is.
Oh, yeah.
He does history in LA.
I had him do a lecture a couple of weeks ago.
I mean, he knows a lot about the area.
I don’t know if that would be something that would fit the history of LA.
I think that would be awesome.
He’s a very good presenter.
Yeah, I’m a marketing person.
I’m not a trained presenter.
And so I think it would be amazing to have a local guide, like somebody who knows how to capture an audience, how to speak about the space, do that.
Not me.
Yeah, so fan trips.
Everybody wants to come to the lab.
I get a ton of these requests with Ben Mangelsdorf.
So far, we’ve posted seven trips for 31 travel industry professionals from 11 countries.
September, obviously, it’s a really popular time to be here.
So we have five upcoming trips with 32 professionals from five countries.
We partner with the UOT to balance like hotels and meals.
And everybody who comes gets a little box of like our outdoor adventure guide and our travel planner and some local art.
And then I write them a card and we give them our business card.
So we keep in touch.
The opt in is the big like marketing campaigns.
So this marketing opt in was approved way back in May.
And we work with the UOT reps who are in these countries who are developing marketing strategies for these regions.
So we’re in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, the Benelux region, India, China, Germany, UK and Ireland.
And we’re doing 50 campaigns.
And each of these campaigns like its own little situation.
So like one of the Canada example campaign is with Explore magazine.
And we’re doing a contest that will involve a fam trip that will organize a print ad, three newsletters, two online articles, three website display ads, three social media posts.
So we work on these with Madden to make sure we’re telling, you know, the same story.
And a lot of these include like a travel show and a festival.
And Australia will have its own virtual sales mission.
And we’ll do another virtual sales mission with India, China, there’ll be a travel expo and a tourism exhibition.
So these are really fun and have a big giant spreadsheet if anybody wants to see how keeping those organized.
Okay, and then we split up, we start splitting up from the UOT when we do travel shows.
So we do these like in partnership, but mostly we’re managing these ourselves.
So in 2025, we went to Go West ITB.
I went to IPW in Chicago in June, and we met with 38 travel professionals from 13 countries.
That was that strategy was developed by Ben Frederick, he wanted us to kind of just have like conversations, chat with people get to know what they needed from us.
And then we sent them all follow up emails.
And then we’re going to brand USA travel week in October in London and make us go into that.
And we found an IPW that people really want our tenors and they want to know who they can work with.
So we need to get a list of like local suppliers who work with our TOs.
And then we have our totally independent international marketing, which is with Madden.
And we’re still determining these markets.
But they have, we have like our own individual investment here that we do totally separate from the UOT.
So it’s kind of a look at our global markets.
Awesome.
I’m really, really, I mean, I’m so happy to see how much you’re working with the UOT because they have such a huge budget.
And they have so many people and they’re doing such great work.
So the your ability to work with them and brand USA, who selected, I mean, that ability to work with them has been incredible.
Yeah, it’s amazing.
And so I’m really happy that you guys, I mean, the more we can work with them, the better.
And I think it’s technology.
I think so too.
I mean, doing these 50 campaigns is a total cost of like $130,000, which, you know, for all of this that we’re getting is really great.
It’s great.
And then just two quick things, you know, and then we have a test.
One is, you know, those contacts that you made somehow that this board can go ahead and look at those and make sure that they’re getting filtered off to the businesses.
Because we also, I mean, that is just a suggestion that you use the power of this board, right?
Because they are going to know quite a few people in each one of these little industries.
And they might be able to say, oh, great, like we have this people and they were interested in this and they can filter those contacts out to those individual businesses.
And then the second would just be, you know, the presentation that you guys put together.
I know you’re going to be working with them.
Just make sure that this board has an opportunity to approve that presentation and maybe provide some input inside there just to see if there’s something that they want to make sure that’s getting pushed out.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, that would be great.
I mean, going to IPW was my first time going to these travel conferences and I could see everyone around me like so dialed with their presentations.
And I was like, I’m still understanding like how this works.
So I’d love to hear from like you and Laurie who have been to these shows before.
Okay.
I don’t think there’s anything we need to vote because we’ve already voted and we’re happy with the work that’s going on, but thank you for the update.
Does anybody have any critical questions about any of that as we move forward?
Thank you so much.
Moving on to reviewing and potential approval of the MTAB bylaws.
These have been reworked by the administrative offices.
And from my understanding have been approved by legal, Brian, are you familiar?
They’ve been approved by legal, correct?
Yes.
I have not received confirmation by email that they were approved by email.
So I’m going to be trusting that.
Go ahead, Sharon.
I have, there’s a couple of things in here that probably need to be changed again.
Okay.
Because down in the board can consist of liaisons.
It’s still list of my chamber of commerce as a liaison down there, which they are now a voting member.
So I don’t think they should be merged.
That should have been right in red.
It was not?
No.
Okay.
No, it’s after the, all the red letters, it’s the net hits two paragraphs down and the board consists of liaisons within the county.
And it says, it specifically says my chamber of commerce will act as a designated liaison represented by the director or their assignee.
And Brian, will you talk to the fact that we have a spreadsheet that was included in the packet that lists how we all are represented.
And then also.
Will you, will you circle those please?
Because I’m going to probably suggest that we postpone the voting on the MTAB.
And then I just have one minor thing in the section four.
So the duties of the board are to section four.
B it says avoid major conflicts of interest, blah, blah, blah, financial payments, whatever between the MTAB office of tourism and board members or member of his immediate family.
It should be their immediate family.
I don’t have to follow this.
One of the things that I didn’t notice from there as well is it says subject to taxes.
And I do think that we should spell out the TRT and the TRCCA in there rather than just have it be the tax says it should probably say TRT and TRCCA, but it should be specific as it is written.
Okay.
We’ve been trying to get all of this into the packet as quickly as possible.
And I love that you read it and caught it.
Go ahead, Brian, and you talk about the spreadsheet of who’s going on.
Yeah.
So when we look at the spreadsheet, if we’re going to have a nine, it’s going to be a nine board member right here.
And then the majority, we need to have two, we have to have two other tourism or cultural relations.
And we have those right now, then which one would be Sharon and the other would be Howard Trenholm right there.
I mean, the majority of the members would have to be TRCCA or TRT collectors.
So that will need when we, when we do go ahead and look for the additional board member, it would be a TRT or TRCCA collector.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was two that we put out, but then there was some questions over employee or owner.
And so we actually went back and looked at the code, I think, and it does say employee.
So no, my date is wrong.
It says my term was up.
Oh, no, it’s not.
I was reading up.
So it’s 2028.
I thought there was two versions of this.
No.
So if we could put our corrections to the admin and then hold off on voting on these bylaws till the next, it shouldn’t take very long, but if everybody wants to read through all of this, when we put it in the packet for the next meeting, that’s super helpful that you point that out.
So if we could get the administration to please solicit applications from TRT, TRCCA collectors for the ninth position that we will have on the board.
When do you need those bylaws?
I would say, do we want to have the next month?
Do we want to select or interview?
Do we want to interview?
All right.
So if they could have those in soon enough so that we could, you know, a week before so that we could interview them prior to the September meeting.
I was just thinking since we have our normal business meetup on August 21st, that might be a good time to share that first.
Sure.
Absolutely.
So I’m not feeling there’s anything we need to vote on right now moving forward.
Is there anybody that feels like there’s something that we should be voting on before to move this forward?
I’m going to postpone that till next meeting.
All right.
So the update on TRT, TRCCA application process and potential subcommittee, will you talk to that?
I wish I had an update.
We put it, we voted two months ago to put together an application.
It was approved by the board.
It was sent the next day to administration and legal and there’s still no update.
So I don’t have, there is no application yet.
It’s still somewhere in administration.
Since that application, the legality and all that hasn’t been approved, we can’t really keep going forward.
So the idea for those of you who aren’t aware is, or I’m not sure if it, so the, particularly with mitigation with regard to TRT and TRCCA every year, the board gives a recommendation.
This is my first year, but the board gives a recommendation on how those funds should be spent.
And Alex was really, that was mostly your suggestion.
It was like, we need to have a more formal process and then maybe we can do an application.
And so that was having an actual application that I’m applying for tourism or I’m applying for mitigation and how they intend to use those funds.
If they’ve received them before, how much they got, that kind of thing to make it more transparent for everybody.
And that way we could wait for the interest.
And there’s a copy of the form inside of the agenda.
I would make a recommendation maybe to still form the subcommittee now so that when more time does return, we can go ahead and get that put through and then we can go ahead and start this process.
Do you think that is going to be a little bit of work for some of these agencies that are going to be applying and it’s going to take a little bit of time to let everybody know that, hey, this is going to be the process for them.
So once that paperwork, if when gets approved, we would like to have people who are interested in helping identify that mitigation money.
Yeah.
Well, at least go ahead and organize it.
Right.
So that we’ve got, I mean, if you had to ask me how I would perceive it is that subcommittee would go ahead, get everybody organized, put it all into a packet and then we would have a a workshop here where we could go ahead and say, this is what we’ve gone through.
You can have people come in if there’s questions to ask.
And then from that point, we can go ahead and you guys can go ahead and write your recommendation.
Awesome.
Are there interested people in being part of that subcommittee?
I know everybody’s super busy this time of year.
So I’m just going to look for volunteers.
Howard and Wendell, hopefully.
And I’ll have Alex.
Oh, Alex.
OK.
We can’t have a quorum, but we can have three.
And if we have non-voting there, they could always be liaisons.
But we are going to have a ton of extra subcommittees that we would love help with because there’s heavy lifting going on.
I don’t think we need to vote on subcommittees to get to a point that.
So we’re going to have Howard, Wendell and Alex, unless you get to a point where you’re like, hey, can I get some help?
Whatever.
I know how the restaurant business does in September.
Great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s going to be good.
Started a little bit before the storm period.
Super good.
All right.
Moving on to item 10.
This is a tricky one.
And I know we’ve got 10 minutes at least for this to review the special event grant application and guidelines potential and a potential subcommittee.
This has been a little bit messy this year.
Do you want to start talking to this?
We both talked to this.
Well, I think basically, I mean, I haven’t been around for the last process.
I think that.
The what makes it very tricky is there used to be an economic development department and the economic development department basically ran this as they had somebody doing it.
And now there is no longer an economic development department and every document for the grant process talks about the economic development department.
The goals are based on the economic development department.
So it’s going to require kind of a relooking.
I know we’re kind of coming at it too late, but I think it’s a great opportunity to kind of revisit.
And I know Sharon, you’ve had concerns about money potentially going to the same people every year and having maybe some new, you know, looking at it from a new perspective.
And before the economic development department joined with the travel council at the time, the travel council was the one who used to run this.
And that’s where the money comes from.
Yes.
And so I think if we try to find some old history for when we did it before, but I know the process has become very muddy, very muddy, and like uninformed.
It gets put on, I mean, nothing against the office of economic development.
When they were there, they were working very hard, but they would go through everything and then just throw it at us and say, okay, you need to approve this.
And I had a conversation with Mark Tyner over this and the idea that two boards trying to approve this one grant, it just wasn’t And since this money is TRT, and then you guys are the legal body to approve the funds for TRT, I think that it should stay within this board right here.
And so I think the recommendation would be that you guys, right now, and this is partly me talking, because as I know that the I’m aware of the office of tourism right now is taking some big lifts with all of what we have going on with the branding, the PR and the media agencies.
Thank you.
And it would be nice if this board right here could take over that lift.
Dana has offered her services for any technical, so she’s willing to help out to go ahead and get this put out.
And so if we could form a subcommittee here that would help out to get this process started and get us moving back in that direction that we needed to be.
I believe that when we look back at the history, this is supposed to be a matching grant for advertising funds.
And so I think that we need to make sure the timelines that we have right now, this is one of my, these are my concerns, timelines we have now, it looks like it’s a repay type of grant.
Right.
And I think that’s what happened last year.
And I think that we can move forward and just say, we’re just going to move forward and we’re going to start in whatever time period you guys think is proper so that we can go ahead and say, great, give me your idea, you give me your idea, we approve the matching media fund and maybe we pay half, something like that.
And then when they come back and they’ve proved that they actually spent this money on advertising, we can then go ahead and say, great, and here’s the final check.
Something kind of like that, just almost like nearing the economic development grants that are going on right now.
I asked Sharon and Howard to start spearheading this because these are passion projects, I know, for Sharon, at least with your history on this board.
And Howard reached out to Quinn and got the skinny on where we are and what’s going on.
And he confirmed, we do not have a process in place.
It’s $62,000 in the amount of heavy lift for giving all this.
We need to do a lot of ground work before.
It has always been, the timeline has been cumbersome.
We would like to start looking at 2026 and start that in September where we can look at people who want a grant in 2026 so we can be ahead not doing this, let’s throw some money in the air because some people need money.
We really want to be responsible stewards of how we do this.
And we haven’t even, Quinn has confirmed, we haven’t heard back from the people that received grants last year to find out how that was done.
And that’s the other piece of the puzzle that economic development handled that they’re not able to handle because they don’t even have a department at this point.
Wait, let me get Howard, do you have anything you want to add to that?
Because that was, I’m trying to go fast.
I mean, just from a whole point of view, we used to do this annually and there was one meeting where we’d get all the money set aside, we’d approve it in our budget, and that was good for the whole next year.
The commission just had to approve our budget and you didn’t have to be presented each event as it came up.
And it was strictly for marketing and it was a matching fund and it got muddled and it got taken away.
It’d be nice to bring it back to its roots.
Is there a staff member, a county staff member that has special events coordinated?
No, we don’t have a special event.
That’s how this thing says that it went from that person to the economic development.
And I think that’s what the subcommittee is going to need to do.
Is redo this, basically redo this.
They’re going to have to redo the process and the structure.
Now, I mean, I will say that events are super important.
Yes.
So they bring in lots of money and I think that this is a great opportunity to out to also reach out to new events.
This could be an incentive that we could do to bring new events inside of town.
There’s a lot of people, I think that when I looked at it, it seemed like a lot of the same folks were applying and will lose grants after a little while.
And it would be really nice if we were actually going out and bringing new businesses in and saying, hey, come on down to Moab, we’re going to give you so-and-so amount of dollars to match your advertising fund, which is a big part of putting on an event.
We’re really focused on blocking out certain periods of the year.
Like we literally blackout spring and fall and really trying to encourage events in shorter seasons, summer months and everything else.
Let’s have dark skies festival in the middle of January, for example.
These are the things we’re trying to do to kind of even out the flow of travel into Moab and these events help bring visitors in, in the off season.
So Ben Alter actually did a spreadsheet.
I tried to read it off.
It says swan Ben’s with my little eyes.
So I put a thing in my own Excel and made it big.
But there’s some great questions on this.
And he even listed the old goal versus the current goal.
And what is, will you read what he feels?
Because these are a lot of Ben Alter’s feelings as opposed to submitting feelings.
What should the goal of the grant be?
That’s a question.
The old goal previous when Howard and I were doing this before was funding is to use as seed money to new events to help develop annual events that bring more tourists to Grand County.
The current goal as it’s listed now is funding is to be used to develop and support events that encourage, encourage quality of life, Grand County residents and quality visitation to Grand County.
Would you like to be on the committee with Howard to do this?
I know it’s a huge lift, but you have to be on there with Howard.
Yes, I do.
This is something that, I mean, I, I got myself in trouble last year when I made comments.
Because it isn’t, it’s supposed to be, you know, bringing new things here, new exciting and, you know, but yes, I would, I would actually be on this committee.
Does anybody else have, what?
I don’t know, I’ll just say yay.
Yay.
Because you’re passionate about this.
And I can help, I’ll help.
Are you interested in this?
Yes, I’m interested.
Okay, good.
We’ll, we’ll put you on that.
Me, Howard, Laura, with help from.
I’ll make sure that we have, for me and then I’ll have Dana and then in staff that we need to coordinate.
Okay.
Whether that’s post or special events.
I think we need to try to get together as soon as possible.
Okay.
Would you be the leader of our committee?
No, actually, which one are you the leader of?
I asked you to be.
Yeah, you asked me.
Yeah, you’re on.
So, you don’t have to leave.
How about that?
Howard, just be one team.
But we can always meet at the next.
We’ve got a big enough.
I mean, we can set some tables.
Yeah.
Auditorium.
You’re leaving.
I just have to know, you better, everybody set up the meeting.
So, there you go.
There you go.
Awesome.
Any additional input about any of the following items or the previous items?
Are we looking for a new director for the opposite tourism?
Is there anything on that?
I would defer to Brian on that.
So, right now, we’re still deciding what they call.
What’s that?
And I was trying not to say that.
And since you said it, I’ll go ahead and put it out.
Let’s have a firm that goes out and search.
Talent agency.
Talent agency.
However, you want to look at it.
We’re looking at hiring one of those.
So, right now, the office is looking at three different firms.
Slavens, who helped us out with the funding and zoning.
We’re also looking at another one called Horizon.
And they specialize in DMOs.
And there’s another agency as well.
So, they’re going to be looking at a firm right now.
And then going in those steps forward.
Budget season is upcoming in our next meeting.
We’ll have budget issues.
How would the commission, speaking from your point of view, like to see the budget process happen?
Are we going to be doing that as a committee?
Are we going to try to get staff?
I’d say that we’d move along as we have in the past.
So, I think that the travel council here, or I’m sorry, the Travel Advisory Board, should move in the same process that they have.
And then we’ll include Mark and Quinn who are the Acting Interim Directors right now.
Make sure that they’re involved with how we go forward as some of our offices.
So, Mark and Quinn will draft the budget with…
They’re going to have to help out.
And then I can facilitate the best that I can.
But yeah, I would imagine that they would help draft with the Moab Office of Humanism the draft budget for you guys to approve.
Okay.
Does anybody have any additional questions?
Guys, look at…
I just want to reiterate and thank these two for what they’ve taken on.
Right.
If we could look, I mean, not to gloat, but we’ve come a long way in six months, since January.
And I really, really appreciate the involvement of everybody that’s rewriting the ship.
Those are my words.
The ship’s heading in a different direction and I’m grateful.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you all for being here.
Adjourned.
Time of the meeting is 4.01. 4.01. We are adjourning the August 12th meeting.
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