The city of Sedona has announced the membership of its new Tourism Advisory Board, and named David Price chairman and John Fitzgibbons vice chairman. Members include Alisha Hansen, Althea Johnson, Richard Kepple, Randy McGrane, Bob Pifke, Frances Riemer, Danielle Sonn, Craig Swanson and Renee Taylor.

Board members’ terms will begin on Jan. 1. Price, Fitzgibbons, Johnson, McGrane and Swanson will serve two-year terms ending on Dec. 31, 2025, while Hansen, Kepple, Pifke, Riemer, Sonn and Taylor will serve four-year terms ending on Dec. 31, 2027.

Board members’ tourism-related experience, concerns and management views from their applications include:

• David Price, a Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board member, is a retiree who has lived in Sedona for four years. He listed his tourism-related priorities on his TAB application as “help to improve communication and reduce polarization while teasing out the best ideas for ways forward in how best to promote and manage tourism in Sedona and our surrounding natural environment.” “We want to be the center of the tourism wheel from which our visitors base their exploration of the Verde Valley and Northern Arizona, rather than just one of the spokes,” Price said.
• John Fitzgibbons is the president of Pink Jeep Tours. His application listed alienated local residents, degraded tourist experience, overloaded infrastructure and damage to nature as the primary tourism issues facing the TAB. “There is a necessity to build destination awareness and strategically position Sedona as a premier experience to the right demographic of potential guest,” Fitzgibbons said.
• Alisha Hansen is the owner of Bennali Outdoor Gear, Dahling It’s You and Sedona Crystal Vortex. She gave her highest tourism priority as “quickly establishing a rough game plan to work with the [Sedona Chamber of Commerce] and other relevant parties to refine our marketing efforts.” “We need to mitigate the traffic, garbage and abuse of our natural surroundings,” Hansen stated, and added, “The city needs to play a bigger role in protecting us from [the Arizona Department of Transportation] and their exceptionally bad timing of projects.”
• Althea Johnson is a part-time manager at the Sedona Village Lodge in the Village of Oak Creek. Tourismrelated issues that she considers priorities include lack of resident support, ongoing traffic mitigation, resident education on marketing and attracting families with children. “Sedona branding should be more inclusive,” Johnson said. “We should become appealing to a broad spectrum of potential visitors and residents.”
• Richard Kepple is the co-owner of Sedona Soul Adventures. Kepple’s tourism priorities are reconciling the city and chamber, establishing a priorities list to guide tourism management for the next 10 to 20 years and “building consensus within our community and businesses on the issues and solutions for the ‘right-sizing’ of tourism in Sedona. The concept that there is a ‘balanced’ approach is not a fullyaccepted idea within the business community.” Kepple also referred to “wear and tear on National Forest lands with too much trail usage.”
• Randy McGrane is a Phoenix resident who is part owner of the Best Western Arroyo Roble. Avoiding a “turf war” between factions within the city, the lack of city experience with tourism management and the continued arrival of visitors while the city is trying to manage them are his main tourism concerns. “Our marketing needs to emphasize stewardship of the land and respect for the community,” McGrane wrote. “Our brand should be welcoming: ‘We want to share this sacred space with the world,’ combined with respect and exclusivity.”
• Robert Pifke is a retiree who has lived in Sedona for 5½ years. His tourism priorities include building consensus on future tourism direction, finding the right level of tourism to support businesses without annoying residents and determining to what extent tourism can be managed at all. “The key problems are congestion on roads, at trailheads and in restaurants during peak seasons, and impact on the Sedona-area environment,” Pifke said.
• Frances Riemer is a professor of women’s and gender studies at Northern Arizona University. “I want to see Sedona as a model for tourism that celebrates and protects the environment, supports its community and educates its visitors,” Riemer said. “How do we control the narrative around our own home? … In communitybased tourism, plans are founded on what tourists want, but on why the community needs it.”
• Danielle Sonn is the general manager of the Hampton Inn Sedona. “We have to promote tourism, plain and simple,” Sonn stated of her priorities. “The major issues facing the city are not simply traffic, trash and noise … There has always been a high season and a low season and 30 years ago it took an hour plus to drive from VOC to West Sedona in March, April, May, September and October. This is not a new problem. I believe that it is a toxic community culture that we have allowed to exist for too long.”
• Craig Swanson is president of Keep Sedona Beautiful and a retiree who has lived in Sedona for three years. His priorities for the TAB include building brand recognition, working with the U.S. Forest Service “to solve the problems caused by too many tourists at key times in key places” and applying the best practices of other tourist towns. “Tourism efforts by the city need to be coupled with clear and repeated messages about how the city’s actions in fact benefit residents — the needs of residents are primary, not secondary,” Swanson said. “We also need to focus on the health of the environment.”
• Renee Taylor is the owner of Renee Taylor Gallery. Taylor listed balance and attracting “higher-performing visitors” as her tourism priorities. She called for attracting “tourists that spend time and money truly experiencing the area, with mindful impact to the environment and a recognition that it’s a city as well as a tourist destination.”