The city of Sedona is back in the tourism marketing game following multiple City Council discussions in September to determine the composition and work program for the city’s new Tourism Advisory Board.

As part of that process, City Manager Karen Osburn informed the council on Sept. 26 that there has already been “high-level discussion around the need to not only resume some very targeted and strategic marketing for the destination, but really determine, develop what is the brand.”

The council’s draft tourism management vision released on March 29 called for “de-marketing” Sedona and reducing visitation to 2019 levels, or by 29%.

Tourism Advisory Board

The council received 37 applications for seats on the Tourism Advisory Board and scheduled interviews with 20 candidates for Sept. 28 and Oct. 4 and 5.

The candidates selected for interviews were Carrol Bernadette, Sondra Bruone, Andrea Christelle, John Fitzgibbons, Alisha Hansen, Althea Johnson, Kerry Kemp, Richard Kepple, Randy McGrane, Bob Pifke, David Price, Frances Riemer, Steve Segner, Nick Sivek, Danielle Sonn, Craig Swanson, Renne Taylor, Mark TenBroek, Cameron Wylde and Stuart Zimmerman.

Interviews were conducted in executive session, in a change from the council’s original plans to interview in public.

“I would propose that we review the applications in executive session and we do the interviews in open session,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog had said on May 10 during council’s discussion of the selection process. “The last council seat we just filled, we vetted the applications in executive session and then we held the interviews of the selected people in open session.”

“I want this to be as public a process as possible,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella had said. “I think that the interviews, in my mind, could be done in a public way and then maybe go into an executive session for a discussion, and then come back out with a recommendation in a public session to be voted upon.”

“I would support that,” Councilman Brian Fultz had agreed.

“The council did intend to do the interviews in public session,” Osburn said when asked about the change. “However, we then realized that if the interviews were held in open session, the interviewees that were early on the first day would have a disadvantage over those that were interviewed later or on subsequent days, because those applicants would have the benefit of hearing the interview questions in advance and hearing the other candidates’ answers and observing the reactions and interactions with the councilors … We wanted to create as even a playing field as possible in order to make it fair to all candidates.”

Mayor Scott Jablow said the board’s composition will likely be announced on Oct. 16 or 17.

Winter Marketing

While the tourism board is being assembled, city staff have proposed moving forward with a winter marketing campaign, “Sunshine to Spare,” that will run from November through January. The campaign will target visitors who have incomes of $175,000 or more, intend to stay for three or more nights and are looking to travel in the middle of the week.

The Sedona Chamber of Commerce’s proposed “Meet Sedona Again” campaign, which council declined to fund on Jan. 24, would have targeted visitors with incomes of $150,000 or more planning to stay four or five days.

Osburn called the “Sunshine to Spare” campaign “a fresh approach” and said on Sept. 12 that the chamber’s marketing efforts were targeting “the day-trip type or short-term” visitors.

The city’s campaign will target what communications manager Lauren Browne described as “drive markets” in Santa Fe and Taos, N.M.; Durango and Telluride, Colo.; Park City, Utah; and possibly Chicago.

“We felt that they were similar and that they all have a high cost of living like we see here,” Browne said.

Osburn and her staff emphasized that the campaign would focus on what she called “education on how to recreate responsibly” and “stewarding the destination” to attract visitors who will contribute to the city’s tax base while leaving a minimal footprint.

Special initiatives coordinator Kegn Moorcroft said the city’s management approach would consist of “in-market education,” while web manager Rob MacMullan used the phrase “conditionally inviting.”

“Here’s how we want you to behave when you are here,” MacMullan said, showing the council a sample website. “Yes, come, but we love it here and you need to love it like we do.”

“How do we disperse people in the best way possible?” Browne asked, describing one of the city’s tourism objectives.

Council Response

“I see no downside at all,” Councilwoman Jessica Williamson said. “The businesses need it. We have sought for years and years to push visitation at this period.”

“It looks like a really great campaign to give a try to,” Fultz said.

“Go for it,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said.

“I agree with everybody up here,” Jablow said.

Browne informed council that the Sedona-Verde Valley Marketing Alliance “is looking at what we’re doing with this winter campaign to decide if they think that it aligns with their goals, and if it does, then they won’t need to do a winter marketing campaign. Which is what we wanted, right?”

Ploog had previously expressed concern on Sept. 12 “that people who potentially want to visit our city don’t get conflicting messages” from overlapping chamber and city marketing efforts.

Osburn said that $50,000 was budgeted for the campaign itself. Of the $1.67 million originally allocated for the city’s contract with the chamber, Osburn added, “we anticipate spending every penny of that this year. We will spend $1.67 million, and we will likely come back to you during next year’s budget process and talk about other options.”

The city’s new tourism website is tentatively slated to launch Nov. 1.

Data Tools

“We have sought out the most state-of-the-art, powerful data tools we could find,” Osburn said of the city’s subscriptions to new data management platforms, which include programs with the ability to look directly into hotel reservation systems to anticipate future visitor bookings and count the number of credit card swipes in town down to the level of individual retailers.

City staff have been working on creating a tourism business database for the last three months to steer visitation inquiries to cooperating businesses. Moorcroft said “about a hundred” businesses have signed up so far. As of Sept. 21, the city had issued 1,165 active business licenses.

Consultant Heather Hermen proposed making deals with hotels and other businesses to give them leads on prospective customers in exchange for data on how many bookings resulted from those leads.

Moorcroft also addressed the city’s plans to build a database of influencers for “pitching stories” and to engage in “media monitoring” to track mentions of Sedona in news stories as well as whether such coverage is positive, neutral or negative.

In addition, the city has hired a photographer to start building a content library and plans to contract with the Kimley-Horn consulting firm for a new study on how many visitors Sedona receives. Osburn said that staff believe 2021 “was the peak of our over-visitation.”

“We’ve got a couple additional tourism positions that we’ll be hiring,” Osburn added.