Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutcoa.cclc.min.03052008COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5, 2008 Chairperson, Terry Butler called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. Commissioners in attendance: Mark Goodman, Don Sheeley, Shae Singer Bill Dinsmoor, Fred Ayarza and Roger Haneman. John Starr was excused. Staff present: Jackie Lothian ACRA -Lisa Johnson, Marketing Director Debbie Braun, ACRA Director Debbie said in October we start to work on the marketing plan for the following year. Next year we should get on the CCLC agenda for October and if there is anything the CCLC wants explanations about or changed we will be able to answer. Lisa Johnson said the tax is about $550,000. a year for half of the 1%. The video explains our marketing plan. The video was also presented to City Council. We have worked in conjunction with the Skiing Company and we focus ourselves organizationally on the non-winter months. Bill said if you combined the Ski Co. money and the ACRA's money how do we compare with other resorts. Lisa said she wasn't sure of the amount of other resorts but it is in the millions, probably around 4 million. Bill asked if we where comparable with Steamboat. Debbie said we are presently moving forward with an impact study simply from Snowmass Village to Aspen and we are also researching our competitors. We will also be looking at their funding sources. Once we know how they are funded we can review it. Lisa pointed out with Snowmass Village coming online you have new beds and new offerings, new restaurants and developers giving incentives to our restaurants to open up over there. We feel it is important even if Council doesn't have their eye on Snowmass Village that it is important to take them into consideration. Fred asked Lisa what the ACRA would do with a larger budget. Lisa said it is important to look at our competitive destinations and the things that are happening. Special Events are becoming a financial game because they are coming out of New York and asking what we can do for them. There are 1 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5, 2008 destinations that have millions of dollars to stand behind and say we will give you a million bucks in seed money to do this event and we have all the beds etc. We can't touch that. We're a great destination but we have no money to back things up. Lisa said sometimes the first call comes into the Skiing Company or the ACRA or the City. We'll feel out the event to see if it is something that has merit for our town. Andrew Kole asked Debbie if they had any cross promotional dollars in other areas. Andrew asked Debbie if they put a value on their advertising for Aspen. Debbie said they have no cross promotional dollars. Debbie said actually their budget is about $660,000. Our occupancy is around 70% right now. Terry said she has the opportunity to sit on the board in Vail and how they all work together is incredible. Everyone is on the same team and nothing falls through the cracks. When they have a bad year they all bunch together to help the one that had the most impact, i.e. lodging community. Aspen doesn't necessarily know who is in charge of what. Lisa said there are a lot of times things are put together behind the scenes to make them happen in town and are not at a public forum. Lisa talked about the television show Top Chef that came to Aspen and how it happened. Bill said if you had a couple million dollars where would you go to be most effective to bring more people to Aspen. Would it be more TV, more print or what. Lisa said she would like applicants that go to Council requesting funds to operate their event to be rolled back to a committee to ask questions etc. Council approves funding without much discussion etc. A couple more key signature events are important and international visitors are important. Colorado Tourism has 17 million dollars that is slated for tour operators all over the world. Our domestic visitors are doing more little trips, 3 or 4 nights spattering it across little getaways. International people come and stay. Right now we only focus on Denver for print and advertising. $30,000 gets me one market and one publication. The media plays a huge part in bringing heads to beds. Fred said he see two things and one is that you are under funded. There is no one place for people to go too. How do we better get organized in Aspen when we are so far back from Vail. We need to get people more aware of 2 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5.2008 Aspen. Lisa said behind the scenes we are very organized. There will always be a collaboration of decision makers for events. Fred said we need to get better organized and closer to what Vail does. Lisa said we have a counterpart Nancy Lesley and a partner the Skiing Company, Jeff Hanley. Terry said we all need to work together to keep things from happening like losing HBO. Mark thanked Debbie and Lisa for attending the meeting. He would like to see a lot more crossover and this meeting was way over do. Referencing the 1% are you seeing a down tum because of fractional ownerships. Lisa said in the market advisory meeting the owners are renting into the pool and we believe the fractional's are working as they are intended. Roger explained if the fractional is handled by a corporate entity the lodging tax applies. If it someone rents it out on E-bay we don't see it. If Frias properties do their job it is taxed. Mark pointed out that 50% of our community is tourists and 50% community. We should aggressively be funding and marketing to our tourist's community. City council needs to realize that and it will help us with employee housing and that is the key problem, "the will to do that". Lisa said another pr front is what is happening and what is new in Aspen. If we don't keep on that we area "has been". We would be open to a standing time to be on your agenda. We need to collaborate with the CCLC and you control an important part of the downtown. Bill said one of the struggles that we have had in our relationship with the city is trying to find predictable long term funding sources. Lisa said Bill is talking the exact same talk they are talking. Debbie said they are trying to find different ways to measure the bigger picture instead on just occupancy reports. Debbie said they write articles for the Business Section of the Aspen Times. She invited CCLC the opportunity for each and everyone to write something for the Business Lounge column. We also have someone on our staff that can help write the column. 3 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5, 2008 Edible Aspen Shae said at the annual meeting for the agriculture vendors they where anxious to have us advertise in Edible Aspen. Bill brought up the distribution aspect and possibly Edible Aspen wasn't the best place for us to spend our advertising money. I met with Carmen and Lisa who have the magazine. Don Sheeley is handling the distribution and Carmen and Lisa are distributing to places that Don doesn't go. It will also be placed in the rooms of the Little Nell. 25,000 copies of their first issue where printed and they ran out. We worked out a trade and presented to Edible Aspen the opportunity to oversee the cooking demonstrations with the advertisers that they have in their magazine focusing on our valley and local farmers. Edible Aspen loved the idea and will be presenting their proposal that will benefit our artisans as well as our farmers. Part of the trade would be the ability to have a table next to the cooking demonstration where they can hand out the magazine as a promotion. Mark said we would have accepted them if they didn't give us any advertising to do the cooking demonstration. The question is whether the demonstration can be done reliably. Limiting the cooking demonstrations to their advertisers would be unfair. We need to encourage the people in the market to do some demonstrations. Don inquired about the price for an advertising page. Shae said the price is around $1,400. Some of our farmers already advertising in their magazine. Terry said the idea is to tum over the cooking demonstration to Edible Aspen. We would also need to set up some rules and regulations. Shae said first we would want to use our local market vendors and the second thing we would want to use our local businesses but for the past three years we have been trying to get local restaurants to participate in the cooking demonstrations and they don't want too. They don't have time and it costs them too much money. Edible can use their advertisers third. Roger said he can see Edible Aspen not getting enough people involved. Edible Aspen might not be able to find people to make a presentation as well. 4 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5, 2008 Shae said Edible Aspen has people from their publication that will participate. Kathy and I have continued to try and find outside sources. Nobody is willing to commit 19 weeks. Bill said we should not use the threshold of 19 weeks. If you do July and August very well that would be great. Nothing grows in June and October is getting late in the season. From the production end there is an enormous responsibility on the chef to produce the equipment etc. We need to have an open conversation with Edible Aspen and to rely on the chefs to supply their equipment is unreasonable. Don said he likes the idea and he does distribute Edible Aspen. They did not run out and I also deliver down valley. It would be great if they could do this and I am sure there are stumbling blocks. Eight weeks would be great and putting their magazines out for advertising is OK. Shae said she believes that we should have a cost of living increase in our booths fees every year. The fact that these vendors are paying $44 a Saturday to have a booth and if you look at the sales we are around one $1,000,295. In order to grow this market realistically needs a web site. We need to purchase our own kitchen equipment and do advertising in conjunction to the ACRA. At the end of each season we have around $2,000. left. The farmers do the profit and loss sheet. My question is do the farmers need to be in charge of our checkbook and taxes. The farmers need to have a letter stating that they participate but they don't run the market. We need a profit and loss statement. Don said you have one person doing the check book. You look at the budget and what the use is for and then you raise the fees. Shae said the things we want to raise the fees for are cooking demonstrations. Mark pointed out that storage is something else that needs dealt with. Shae said Kathy has been working on a storage shed. A tuff shed would not be approved by the Historic Preservation Commission. We also need to consider doing additional advertising. 5 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5, 2008 Terry pointed out that shade is an issue and if we had shade people would hang around and spend a lot more money. Shae said we can't put shade across the streets because the fire trucks use that street. We have approached the Parks Department about adding more chairs in Conner Park. Shae also asked the board about going forward with Edible Aspen. Don suggested Shae talk with Edible Aspen and come with some kind of contract and brings it back and we will review it. Terry suggested Shae ask Edible Aspen for a proposal as to how they can be successful. Bill's idea about the eight weeks is a good one. Andrew Kole said there is nothing in the contract that says the craft booths can't cost more than the farmer's booths. The craft people are doing really well. Andrew also pointed out that without the cooking demonstrations you had no fall off on attendance. The cooking demonstrations don't bring in anything. What will bring in more people is expanding the market a third block. What makes other markets better is that they can spend more time at them. I would increase the rates for the craft vendors and deal with the farmers separately. Shae suggested that a letter be drafted to the farmers explaining who runs the market. The farmers don't want to stay later because they run out of produce but they can't bring more produce because they are doing five or six markets during the week. If the farmers are participating in the market they should have a cost of living increase as well. Bill said at some point a meeting needs to be set up so we can get some clarity about what the misconceptions are. Terry said whoever is head of the farmers should meet with us. Bill said we need a budget. Shae said it took us all last summer to get the problems solved from the last market manager. Everything has been paid off and we had to close out a checkbook and reopen one. We have a budget for 2008. Shae suggested that we outline between now and through the summer the things that we would like to have to better the market. Going into 2008 we need a clear understanding as to how the market is run through the CCLC and the City of Aspen and the farmers. Mark said we need to get the budget numbers and this is an embarrassment not having the checkbook figures etc. Bill said Shae and Kathy should be doing quick books. Shae said that is why I want a letter out saying this is a 6 COMMERCIAL CORE & LODGING COMMISSION MINUTES OF MARCH 5, 2008 city event overseen by CCLC and managed by the market managers. The farmers don't have a vote who the market manager is. It is run by the CCLC who has hired the market manager. Terry asked Shae to contact Edible Aspen and get a proposal. Also get in touch with the farmers and have them at a meeting for clarifications. Terry asked Shae to get with Kathy regarding the letter. MOTION.• Terry moved to adjourn; second by Shae. All in favor, motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 11:00 a.m. ~~ ~~~-~ Kathleen J. S land, Chief Deputy Clerk