Visitor guide collaboration approved

During the September meeting of Hot Springs Travel and Tourism, the board approved a motion to work in partnership with the Thermopolis Independent Record for distribution of the visitor guide through Certified Folder.

The motion essentially means that Travel and Tourism will no longer put out a visitor guide of its own. Tourism Director Amanda Moeller explained Travel and Tourism budgets about $6,000 to $6,500 per year to put out its guide, which are 20 pages. Going to the size of guide put out by the newspaper bumps them into the “magazine” category, which does increase distribution costs to about $15,000.

However, she pointed out that Travel and Tourism pays about $20,000 every 18 months or so for printing its current guides, in addition to the $6,500 for distribution. By just paying the $15,000 for distribution, it’s significantly lower than the $26,500 total paid to put out the brochures.

Moeller said she recently visited with Lara Love, publisher of the Independent Record, and she was excited about the collaboration and getting distribution broadened. The two are also on the same page about not duplicating efforts and pooling resources to “get the Thermopolis message out further.”

The newspaper prints its guide annually rather than every 18 months, Moeller noted, but there is a new one printed in the spring that’s updated, where the brochure it fairly static. She further added there has been some discussion about taking pages out of the Travel and Tourism guide.

The collaboration on the guide also means increased distribution of the guide to more areas in Wyoming and outside the state.

Board Chair Carl Leyba was concerned that the partnership would take away a publication that is Travel and Tourism’s, and board member Angie Guyon added she likes the idea as the same information is going out, but in more pages. Guyon also pointed out having one guide that is done through a partnership can help resolve the issue of people thinking there is competition with two guides going out.

Following approval of the motion to partner with the newspaper on distribution of the guides, a second motion was approved to move $15,000 of the $20,000 budgeted for the former guide to the budget line item for Certified Folder; the remaining $5,000 was moved to the Other Publications line item.

Also at the meeting, Moeller noted that the lodging tax receipts are up 35 percent compared to last year. She said board member Roos really “nailed it” last month when he said receipts would likely be up due to the influx of roofers and dent repair specialists. Though the receipts are listed as for September, it reflects the receipts from two months prior, which would be July when the hailstorms hit.