WCVB director Metzmaker to step down at end of year

Marketing a town like Whitefish can be worrisome job. Even after paying for billboards with photos of waist-deep powder and blue sky, the snow might not come. Or Glacier National Park could be closed during the fall season.

Still, the Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau continues to increase the number of visitors to town and bring an economic boost to the community.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done,” WCVB executive director Jan Metzmaker said last week from her office in the Railroad District.

Metzmaker has been the one to worry about how to best promote Whitefish, but at the end of the year she’ll leave the job she’s held for the last seven years.

When Metzmaker was first brought on in 2006, the volunteer board of directors asked her to figure out how to make a convention and visitor bureau work. She started calling around to other mountain towns and asking questions.

“I knew the concept was good, but I didn’t know if it was going to work,” she recalled.

Then Whitefish Mountain Resort joined and that got others to follow. Working with the resort on joint marketing efforts has been really important, she noted.

The bureau has gone from an annual budget of about $60,000 that first year to a budget of almost $500,000. Most of the base budget comes from a 1 percent tourism promotion assessment on lodging, rental cars and restaurant purchases, along with some retail businesses paying a flat membership fee.

“We’ve been able to bring people here, get them to spend money and stay longer,” Metzmaker said.

She points to resort tax collection being up 10 percent last year, even in a down economy, along with increased bed tax collection for January to March as proof that the WCVB’s goal of bringing tourists to Whitefish is working.

“We do not promote summer because we don’t have to,” she said. “We want to increase the visitors during the shoulder seasons and make business more successful.”

Originally, Whitefish’s bed tax money went to a county convention visitor bureau until the city decided to break away. Eventually the WCVB was formed and became a separate nonprofit.

“In the end the decision was good for Whitefish because we’re so different from the rest of the county,” she said. “It’s important for us to stand alone and promote ourselves.”

Metzmaker’s first visit to Whitefish came by chance when she picked up a hitchhiker in Glacier Park who needed a ride to town. Then in 1972 she worked as a waitress at the Alpinglow Inn on the mountain.

Metzmaker returned after graduating from college and she’s been here ever since.

“This is my 41st year here,” she said. “I’m glad I’ve been able to stay and I feel fortunate to be able to give something back.”

Metzmaker previously served as executive director for The Glacier Fund and field director for Sen. Max Baucus. A former member of the Whitefish City Council, she has also served on numerous committees.

Leading the WCVB gave her a new opportunity.

“I got to know the people in this town — a lot of the business owners that I didn’t know before,” she said. “We’re lucky to have a lot of good people here.”

The WCVB has grown and changed in the way it reaches out to potential visitors. It’s website has been created as a user-friendly way to learn about what Whitefish has to offer and a free app that assists visitors in finding information about local restaurants, shopping, parks and trails once they’re here. The Montana Office of Tourism often uses Whitefish’s website as an example of good promotion, she noted.

“When we started out, we were just putting ads in magazines,” Metzmaker said. “We still do some magazine ads, but now everything is online.”

Looking back over her time spent growing the WCVB, Metzmaker said she’s most proud of the travel lists that have included Whitefish. Among the designations, Budget Travel Magazine selected Whitefish as one of its 10 Coolest Small Towns in America in 2009 and National Geographic picked the Whitefish Winter Carnival as one of its top-10 winter carnivals in the world.

“Those only happened because of the buzz we created to get Whitefish noticed,” she said.

Metzmaker isn’t sure what she might do next with her life, but says she’s got a new pair of skis waiting.