VAIL — Over the past decade or so, Vail has put most of its marketing eggs into summer’s basket. That may have to change.
The midday temperature in Vail was in the mid-40s on Jan. 9. Snow was melting off rooftops. With that as a backdrop, the Vail Town Council gathered in The Grand View room atop the Lionshead Village parking structure for a morning-long conversation about the town’s direction. As part of that discussion about the town’s near-term future, the current drought drew some attention.
Council member Jenn Bruno said it’s time for the town to look at diversifying its winter economy.
Bruno, co-owner of the Luca Bruno clothing stores in town, said after spending the past few weeks in the two shops, it’s clear that visitors need more to do in the winter months. There’s only so much dining and shopping you can do when the ski slopes are short of snow, she said.
“We saw people cutting their trips short — they ran out of stuff to do,” Bruno said. “We’ve spent so much time on summer (marketing) — we need to change the way we think.”
Council member Greg Moffet said the town needs something in the winter that can drive visitation the way the Burton U.S. Open Snowboard Championships does in March.
“If this is an opportunity for us to address our competitive situation, we should,” Moffet said.
If a winter marketing campaign emerges from Tuesday’s brainstorming session, then it would be at least conceptually similar to Vail All the Love, a marketing campaign launched in the fall of 2008, just as the nation’s economy had fallen into a deep slump.
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