Heading out of a year where visitation was relatively flat compared to the year prior, the Breckenridge Tourism Office is now looking forward to 2025 and is nailing down its budget and marketing strategy.

The office is shooting for an approximate $5.4 million budget for 2025, which is a 9% increase from 2024. Chief executive officer Lucy Kay said the increase can largely be attributed to inflation, yet there are notable additions to the events and destination media budgets.  

She said, for now, a $100,000 increase to the destination media budget will likely sit in a contingency until the summer. The Breckenridge Tourism Office’s budget request to the town details a vast majority of this will be allocated toward marketing to out-of-state visitors during the summer and fall. 

Up until recently, the office’s summer and fall data didn’t accurately reflect what lodging occupancy looked like for 2024. Data it was originally given for May-October demonstrated occupancy was down as much as 20% year over year. At an Aug. 27 Breckenridge Town Council meeting, the office reported lodging revenue for one of its most reliable visitor demographics, Coloradans, was down 28%.

Having a goal of 3-4% growth each year for summer and fall occupancy, these numbers were concerning to the office. Concerns were quelled when the correct occupancy data came and showed Breckenridge was actually only down 2% year over year.

Public relations director Melissa Andrews said their team contacted Key Data, who provides the office with lodging occupancy stats, and learned about and corrected a technical glitch. She added stronger safeguards were put in place to ensure these issues don’t happen again. 

Kay said if things are looking good by the time the summer rolls around, they will likely use some of that money on marketing to a region they think has potential.

The events budget increase includes staffing additions and beefing up events such as 10 Mile Pride, which the office will pour $65,000 into.

She said most of Breckenridge Tourism Office’s budget comes from the town, supported largely by accommodations tax, and some revenue comes from events. 

While the office had some deviations in its budget amid and directly after the height of COVID-19, things are now beginning to stabilize back to normal levels, Kay said. 

In 2020, the office had a budget of around $4.76 million. The stark uptick in tourism seen during 2021 had significant impacts on its yearly budget.

“We had a tidal wave of tourism post COVID, so we didn’t need that much money,” she said, adding the office gave over a half a million of its $4.2 million budget that year back to the town.

The following year, 2022, the budget was around $4.36 million and in 2023 the budget was around $4.7 million. Last year the budget was approximately $4.94 million. 

Kay said the office’s marketing strategy will mirror that of prior years and they plan to stick with what works. 

The Breckenridge Tourism Office has historically used “top of the funnel” marketing tactics. 

“We’re casting the net for people who we think would be interested in Breckenridge,” she said, noting this group of people who might not be overly familiar with Breckenridge is at the top of the funnel.

Andrews said the middle tier of the funnel is “consideration.” People the office are advertising to in the middle of the funnel likely already know what Breckenridge is. She said an example of “mid-funnel” marketing could be an influencer popping up on someone’s social media page promoting a brand the consumer is already familiar with.

The bottom of the funnel is conversion, or working to turn a potential and interested customer into a paying one, which in this case is getting someone to book a trip to Breckenridge.

Andrews said the tourism office covers the top levels of the funnel to get people interested in coming to Breckenridge so those in lodging industry, such as short-term rentals and hotels, don’t have to. She said this sets the lodging industry up to convert interested customer into visitors that book.

Kay said while they mostly start with top of the funnel marketing tactics, they will adjust to mid-funnel tactics if lodging volumes aren’t where the office thinks they should be as the year goes on. To boost lodging volumes, the office will use strategies such as adverstising to people they have already advertised to who have shown some interest in visiting.

The office pivoted to this approach last season, and looked to reach more predisposed guests with its media and messaging. 

Kay said when the office first submitted its 2025 budget request to the town, the occupancy forecast it was given was incorrect. Because of this, the office planned on doing more mid-funnel marketing in 2025 and place focus on advertising to people who have already shown some consideration in visiting. This is considered a more conservative marketing approach, she said, given people lower in the funnel are more familiar with the area and hence are more likely to book a trip.

Yet, the office now has a more accurate occupancy forecast which is more inline with what it was expecting to see and indicates stronger visitation. She said the office still might consider doing some mid-funnel marketing to start 2025.