AURORA — Visit Aurora president Gary Wheat promises that the second year of the fledgling destination marketing organization will be much more visible than its first.
In the year since it was organized last December, Visit Aurora has been working on “infrastructure” — hiring two staff members, recruiting membership and other issues — but it has little to publicly show for the effort.
The biggest coup to date was landing an international powerlifting championship, a move initiated by local powerlifting legend Dan Gaudreau, who runs a gym in Aurora.
Wheat said he hopes to use that as a springboard for a banner 2012.
“Obviously, it’s a building process,” Wheat said. “Our goal is to promote Aurora as a destination and attract visitors, preferably overnight, and leave our dollars in our community.”
Building takes time, apparently.
Visit Aurora has a Facebook page, but the group’s website is the same one used when the volunteer Visitors Promotion Advisory Board in Aurora was in charge of drumming up out-of-town business for the city’s hotels, restaurants and shopping areas.
The promise of a new website has been posted for almost a year. The “Latest Visit Aurora News” is a news release posted Dec. 6, 2010 — the day the city announced the creation of Visit Aurora.
To be fair, Wheat started nearly from scratch.
“We got a mid-year report and it was kind of making progress but no big splashes, nothing spectacular,” said City Councilwoman Molly Markert. “They’re starting from a real hard place. It’s not like they’ve had a base of work to build on.”
Visit Aurora receives 10 percent of what is collected through the city’s lodgers tax, which is about $550,000 a year.
Visit Aurora’s biggest challenge is its lack of attractions and top-flight convention space.
Neighboring Denver, for example, can market itself for conventions, to ski enthusiasts and others who want a downtown experience. Denver even has its own ski mountains with Winter Park and Mary Jane.
Visit Denver also has a big budget to work with. This week, the agency announced its $500,000 Mile High Holidays campaign, which will pitch Denver’s holiday shopping and events through January.
Aurora has no real convention space to speak of, either. The powerlifting championship will be held at the Red Lion hotel. However, if the planned Gaylord resort hotel comes to reality, the city will have much more convention space to pitch.
In the interim, Visit Aurora is trying to build on its high profile as a destination for youth sports tournaments to fill hotel beds and restaurant tables.
“Who would think of Aurora as a destination?” Markert wondered. “We’re a suburb. We don’t have anything like Water World. We don’t have anything even remotely like that.”
Wheat said the promised new-and-improved Visit Aurora website should be up and running by the end of the year. It will include the ability to book a hotel room.
Visit Aurora also has begun to market the Anschutz Medical Campus — said to be among the best facilities of its kind in the region if not the country — to medical conventions. The campaign also helps out-of-town patients navigate the city.
Wheat said compared with the first 10 months of 2010, revenue from the city lodgers tax is up 10 percent to $3.8 million.
Former City Councilman Brad Pierce, who serves on the Visit Aurora board, wondered why the organization isn’t sending out news releases about holiday shopping in the city.
Still, he said he’s not worried about the pace Visit Aurora has set so far. To build a good product, he said, takes time.
“I’m not concerned about it,” Pierce said. “The results he’s gotten so far are pretty good for an organization that’s only been here a year.”
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
