Spring, fall targeted for increased marketing
With Whitefish’s national appeal as a summer tourist destination firmly in place, the group in charge of marketing the city continues to focus on promoting the shoulder seasons.
The Whitefish Visitor and Convention Bureau board of directors recently approved its marketing budget for Fiscal Year 2017, with the bulk of the funds — about 60 percent — earmarked for promoting the winter ski season. The remaining funds are split between marketing campaigns in the spring and fall. No marketing dollars are planned to be spent in the summer.
“Overall, the goal is to promote at 60 percent, 20 percent and 20 percent,” said Jen Frandsen of Old Town Creative, a local firm tasked with managing the WCVB marketing budget. “We split the line items for the most benefit for each season.”
Last summer, July through September, accounted for more than half of the total state bed tax collections from Whitefish in 2015. The spring season, from April to June, was the second busiest for collections, bringing in 20 percent of the total. About 13 percent was collected from January to March, and 11 percent from October to December.
The winter media budget totals $76,782, and will target most heavily the Chicago market. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and nearby drive-to markets are also included in the winter target markets.
The Bay Area is a new market for the WCVB, Frandsen said, noting the direct flight between Glacier Park International and San Francisco beginning this winter.
Winter promotion will be focused almost exclusively on digital strategies and through Amtrak, with some attention going toward bus billboards.
Almost all of the media spending in the winter comes after the Christmas holiday season. Nick Polumbus, Director of Marketing at Whitefish Mountain Resort and WCVB board member, says promoting the ski area in December generally is “a waste” given the holiday crowds. January and February are the key months to target, he added.
The WCVB has limited marketing efforts tagged for March and April at the end of the ski season.
The spring media budget totals $25,594, with the bulk split between the Seattle and Portland areas, and the remainder on drive-to markets. Most of the marketing is earmarked for May, with the remainder in June. A good portion of the spring budget, about $5,000, is planned to be spent on cycling publications.
“In the spring, we narrow the market as Whitefish becomes more of a drive-to destination,” Frandsen said, “and we lose that Chicago flight.”
The fall media budget is nearly identical to spring at $25,594, and focuses spending from August to October mostly in Seattle and Portland. About $5,000 is set to be spent in hiking publications.
For April through June 2016, the lodging bed tax collections for the city of Whitefish were up 4 percent over the year before. The spring bed tax numbers also outpaced collections in October through December 2015.
The WCVB marketing plan for fiscal year 2017 specifically points out that marketing efforts are targeting to extend the summer season by promoting early autumn visitation and the “Secret Season” of building late spring and early summer visitation, while growing winter visitation during select periods of time with historically lower business levels.
“Central to this effort is to communicate specific reasons for travel in these time periods, including visitation to Glacier National Park,” the plan says. “This means communicating activities, features, and events worth experiencing during these time periods that cannot be experienced at other times of the year and are unique to our area.”
According to data from the Institute of Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana, of non-resident visitors to Whitefish last year 89 percent visited Glacier Park. The top activities while vising were scenic driving, day hiking, nature photography, recreational shopping and wildlife watching.
According to the WCVB, lodging occupancy levels are still strong in Whitefish from late August into early September so it’s objective is to extend that summer season into autumn. The marketing plan says it plans to promote this season through promoting adventures, fall events and activities and build on Whitefish as the basecamp for visiting Glacier Park during the fall for experiences such as scenic driving, fall foliage, wildlife watching and hiking.
It’s approach to building the “Secret Season” of May and June is similar to that for the fall.
Whitefish offers a world-class ski and snowboarding experience, including unique winter events, yet destination visitation to the town is still significantly lower than the summer season, the plan notes. Efforts will seek to focus on the winter experiences in Glacier National Park, including sightseeing, snowshoeing, and Nordic skiing. The perception that Glacier Park is closed in the winter continues to be a challenge and efforts will focus on dispelling that myth, the plan says.
In the spring and fall seasons, a new target area for promotion is the emerging activity of cycling. According to the UM tourism research, of those visiting Montana, 84 percent brought a bike, 22 percent bicycled into the state, 14 percent rented a bike and 11 percent took an organized bike tour.
The plan notes that Whitefish has made a serious investment in bicycling amenities from the cross-country style of the Whitefish Trail to the downhill lift accessed trails at Whitefish Mountain Resort.
Dylan Boyle, WCVB executive director, said the tourism forecast for the U.S. for next year is that leisure travel will have a steady increase for domestic travel. In addition, he said, an improvement in the Canadian exchange rate and expected improvements in the Alberta economy should help with travel to Whitefish. Also he pointed to onthesnow.com’s prediction that Whitefish Mountain Resort will see 120 percent of average snow fall this winter.
“There is always economic or environmental factors at play,” he said. “That [snowfall] is a prediction, but that type of buzz around a big snow year bodes well for us and could lead to non-resident travel bookings.”