2022 Visit Loveland Annual Report

Featured in this report

Mission & Vision

About Visit Loveland

Revenues and Expenses

Strategic Plan

Visitors Center Traffic & Sales

Events & Sponsorships

Visit Loveland Destination Events

Marketing

Loveland By the Numbers

PR, Social Media, and Website

Loveland, Colorado

“Tourism…a first date to Economic Development

with marketing campaigns by Destination Marketing Organizations as the matchmaker, and jobs and economic growth as offspring."

We love our partners

Letter from the Visitor Services Director, Cindy Mackin

Turning a setback into a comeback. This is what has been driving Visit Loveland for the last two years. Fighting our way through a pandemic which decimated travel, groups, conferences and consequently our budget, to riding the waves of change in an industry that today still suffers from employment issues. We suffered our own loss of staff in 2022, however, Visit Loveland has continued to persevere keeping our vision and mission, our partners and our community at the forefront of all our decisions.

As leaders for Visit Loveland, we do not take this job lightly. We are charged with leading so much more than marketing. We are the keepers of the culture and as leaders of our destination, we are responsible for developing it, selling it, being the official face and voice of the destination and a champion for change. We are responsible for programs promoting a community as an attractive travel destination and enhancing its public image as a dynamic place to live, work and play. It is through this destination stewardship and brand importance, that we strengthen the community's economic position and vitality which provides opportunity for all the people in the City of Loveland.

2022 began with visitors masked, with a hesitancy to travel and a fear of the unknown. However, pent up travel demand aptly named “revenge travel” coupled with strategic marketing, better economic conditions and a growing resurgence of groups and conferences to the area led the way to a record-breaking year for travel to Loveland. Big wins for the Visit Loveland team included record breaking attendance and PR achieved at both Sweetheart Festival and Winter Wonderlights signature events, the creation and adoption of a new 5-year strategic plan and being awarded over $195,000 in state and federal grants!

2022 yielded record breaking lodging tax collections, record breaking sales and visitors to the visitor's center, triple digit increases on social media and website platforms. Visit Loveland is currently rebuilding an amazingly creative and talented team of experts. We are cautiously optimistic on the future of travel and will continue to work diligently in 2023 with all of our stakeholders to advocate, educate, collaborate and continue to tell our unique brand story to the world. Don’t call it a comeback… But its hard to call it anything else. Here’s to a successful 2023!

Team Visit Loveland

Working Hard to Share the LOVE of Loveland

CINDY MACKIN Visitors Services Manager

CHARLES LAMMERS Marketing Manager

MAY SORICELLI Technical Specialist

KAREN DINOIA Visitors Center Manager

KELLY JONES Director

Visitors Center Team

Working Hard to Share the LOVE of Loveland with Visitors from all over the world

LANCE NOBLE

REUBEN WILBUR

TWILA PETER BOB DAMBROSIO

COMMUNITY MARKETING COMMISSION 2022

James Melena Meredith Siss – Vice Chair

Christine Forster - Chair Zack Andersson

Nathan Thompson

Kathleen George Kurt Albers Mayor Jacki Marsh

Councilor Patrick McFall Kevin Smith

It All Starts With a Visit

“If you build a place where people want to visit, You’ll build a place where people want to live. And, if you build a place where people want to live, You’ll build a place where people have to work.

If you build a place where people want to work, You’ll build a place where business wants to be, You’ll have built a place where people want to visit.”

Mission

Strengthen Loveland’s share of the Colorado travel market by promoting the unique assets of Loveland to increase visitation an maximize the economic impact of travellers.

Vision

To uniquely position Loveland as a premier year round destination and a base camp for domestic and international visitors traveling to Northern Colorado for leisure and business.

Maura Gast

About Loveland Colorado

THE SWEETHEART CITY

Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky mountains, just 45 minutes north of Denver, Loveland is hailed as a Gateway to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. It is the basecamp to all northern Colorado adventures and a haven for outdoor recreation. Loveland is a beautiful place to live, work, and explore. Hailed as one of the best small art towns in America and home to four distinct sculpture gardens, Loveland truly is a work of art. It’s mountainous views, plentiful water and natural areas, diverse shopping and dining options, craft breweries, western experiences and bustling year-round events calendar make Loveland a place with Everything you Love!

8.7 Million Visits

From 1.9 Million

*Visitor’s Per Year

338K Room Night’s +11 5% Over LY

*Visitors live more than 20 miles outside of Loveland

Lodging Tax Collections

Lodging Tax Annual Totals

Since the adoption of the lodging tax in 2009, Loveland has experienced record setting growth in lodging tax collections and has consistently achieved some to the highest occupancy rates in the state of Colorado.

COLORADO HOTEL LODGING ASSOCIATION

The Rocky Mountain Lodging Report is sponsored by the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association and represents a snapshot of those hotels that participate. Here are the monthly and annual occupancy rates, ADR and REVPAR numbers for Loveland

Revenue & Expenditures

VisitLovelandisfundedbytheCityofLoveland’s3%lodgingtax.Thisspecial fundhasveryspecificuses. Thesedollarsareearmarkedformarketingthe destinationandsupportingandcreatingcommunityanddestinationeventsthat driveahealthyeconomyandcreatebusinessopportunity.

2022-2027 STRATEGIC PLAN

ThisstrategicplanwascreatedbytheVisitLovelandStaff&TheCommunityMarketingCommissionwith stakeholder inputanddataprovidedbyDMAI’s(DestinationManagement’sAssociationInternational’)StrategicPlanningTool

5 areas of strategic focus:

FUNDING

Increasing and securing additional funding streams in order to bolster Visit Loveland’s presence in the market was identified by the CMC and stakeholder groups as the number one priority.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT DATA EXPERIENCE

Utilizing research and data to produce data driven strategies in order to attract and retain more high value visitors. Create an advocacy databased toolkit in order to elevate and educate tourism and city partners about their users/audience and customers

COMMUNICATIONS

Creating an official communications plan to strategically inform, educate and elevate Loveland’s brand story to regional, domestic and international visitors, stakeholders, locals and media/influencers.

Encouraging development and attraction of tourismrelated infrastructure to enhance visitor experience and increase visitorrelated Economic Development.

Focusing on visitor’s experience from start to finish. Creating a welcoming atmosphere for visitors, consistent and positive interactions with locals and front-line personnel thus increasing the likelihood of return visitors.

$174,816.60

The VISITOR’S CENTER

SALES

+48% Over 2021

VISITORS

12,43o

+18% Over 2021

Over $100,000 in Love Locks sold since 2019

WE LOVE EVENTS

Visit Loveland helped to sponsor 24 different events throughout the year through monetary, in-kind, asset donation, and marketing resources. Visit Loveland LOVES events and it shows through our hard work and collaboration with the community stakeholders and partners.

SUPPORTING COMMUNITY

EVENTS & PROGRAMMING

VISIT LOVELAND SPONSORED THE FOLLOWING COMMUNITY AND DESTINATION EVENTS IN 2022

Sweetheart Festival

Loveland Group Wedding

Cherry Pie Festival

Children’s Day

Corn Roast Festival

Pastel’s on 5th

Festival of Lights

Loveland Oktoberfest

Winter Wonderlights

Meals on 4th

4th of July

Sounds of Centerra

Horsetooth International

Film Festival

Honey Festival

Eagles Hockey

Kite Festival

Sculpture in the Park

NCAA Hockey Tournament

Pumpkin Festival

Larimer County Fair & Rodeo

Centerra Wild

Wonderful Weekend

Scarecrow Scavenger

Hunt Sparklers Triple Crown

TPC Ascendant by Blue

PGA Tournament

Sparklers Triple Crown

Lov eland

Oktoberfest

Corn Roast Festival

Sculpture in the Park

Sweetheart Festival

VISIT LOVELAND

THE PERFECT HOLIDAY DESTINATION

Visit Loveland was proud to produce the 6th year of Winter Wonderlights in 2022. We expanded our holiday destination creation into downtown with the newest installation, Winter Wonderlights downtown in the Foundry plaza. We added Ice sculpting and of course LIVE Reindeer again, community performances a plenty and free photos with Santa. What’s not to LOVE about celebrating the holidays in Loveland?

WE are so grateful for all the amazing partnerships and the strong community support received in 2022!

WINTER WONDERLIGHTS RECAP

Visit Loveland is so thankful for all of the partners, sponsors, community groups and media that helped to produce this annual event. It takes a village to pull it all together but is a labor of LOVE and a driver during the shoulder season.

• 20.5K Visitors

• 1200 lbs of food collected for Foodbank of Larimer County

• 14 Community Group performances

• 59 pieces of media coverage resulting in a PR Value of $1,717,237.

• WW Facebook page grew to 6,981 fans and over the season had 30,875 engagement with 406,075 impressions

• Denver 7 brought up anchors each of the LIVE weekends to host the LIVE nights and featured Winter Wonderlights each week on their 7 things to do around Denver!

VISIT LOVELAND

TRAVEL TRADE & MEDIA FAMS

Working with the Colorado Tourism Office, their PR agency, Visit Loveland hosted over 22 Travel tour operators and media from all over the world including England, Australia, Mexico, France, Germany and Ireland. Domestically we worked with HULA communications to host our first ever 2-day media FAM focused on winter travel! 9 journalists attended this two day event.

MARKETING THE LOVE OF LOVELAND

Our signature marketing piece every year is our annual Loveland Visitors Guide. This year we went BIG by producing our first ever full sized magazine guide. Visit Loveland staff, wrote the copy and designed the template as well as provided MANY of the photos there within. The storytelling and the format may change, but the goal is always the same, to inform, educate, and INSPIRE travel to Loveland. These guides are distributed at all of the Visitors Centers and welcome centers around the state as well as over 600 locations in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska. 45,000 were printed in 2022.

BY THE NUMBERS

TOP

TOP 10 FAVORITE PLACES OF VISITORS

TOP VISITOR MSA’S

TOP TEN STATES VISITS

TOP TEN COLORADO CITIES VISITS

VISITORS TO LOVELAND

VISTORS BY DAY OF THE WEEK

VISTORS BY AVERAGE DURATION OF STAY

VISTORS BY TIME OF DAY

VISTORS BY MONTH

Public Relations OVERVIEW

Strategic destination marketing, event promotion, media partnerships, and digital advertisement worked together to increase public relations reach and impressions. The below numbers displays the impact of our reach outside of paid advertisement.

IMPRESSIONS

PR VALUE

$68,215,356

2,782,788,434

SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS

Website Metrics

Coming in 2023: A newly remodelled website and strategic marketing plan!

PAGEVIEWS

905,459 SESSIONS

329,307

• Winter Wonderlights

• Events

• Sweetheart Festival

• July 4 Festival

• Valentine’s Day in Loveland

• Loveland’s Top 10/ Kid’s Top 10

MALE

Traveling... It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller

THANK YOU