Visitors bureau helping Boulder lure lucrative offseason events

BOULDER — Imagine an ultimate Frisbee event held every November at the Valmont City Park disc golf course.

With Boulder’s often mild winter weather, how about booking a badminton tournament on intramural sports fields on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus in March?

An orienteering race could get participants outdoors using compasses or GPS devices to find objects.

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Whether it’s one of those sporting activities or some other event that can be put on between November and April and played in a local venue, Mary Ann Mahoney and her team at the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau are likely to bring it here.

With three new employees and more than $400,000 more in its budget this year than last year, the bureau is looking to woo new sporting events and visitors to town — preferably in the “off-season” winter months.

The 2012 Convention and Visitors Bureau budget was $1.28 million for 2012, compared with $763,000 in 2011. The $417,000 increase in funds came from a portion of a 2 percent increase in the city’s accommodation tax. Voters in 2010 approved raising that tax to 7.5 percent of hotel lodging receipts from 5.5 percent. The bureau’s budget also includes 100 percent of a food service tax designated to it.

“It’s really, really exciting for us,” Mahoney said of the new promotion efforts. “We haven’t had the budget and staff to be able to do this in the past.”

The bureau gets 20 percent of the revenue from the 7.5 percent accommodation tax collected by the city, said Bob Eichem, the city’s finance director. As an example, if the accommodation tax brings in $1 million in revenue in a year, the bureau receives $200,000, Eichem said. If additional accommodation tax revenue is collected in a year above what is projected by the city finance office, he said, the bureau can request up to 20 percent of the additional revenue.

The first success for the bureau’s new off-season project was getting the 2014 USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships. It’s scheduled for Jan. 8-12 at Valmont Bike Park.

Boulder was chosen for next year’s event because of its “amazing cycling community” as well as for its amenities, including the work and money put into the bike park recently, said Micah Rice, vice president for national events at USA Cycling, which is based in Colorado Springs.

More than 1,200 participants are expected to be in Boulder, where they’ll eat at local restaurants and breweries and stay the night at local lodging venues, Rice said.

“There are lots of great things to do in Boulder outside of the races that are attractive,” Rice said.

Organizers may consider Boulder again after the 2014 event, although the Cyclo-cross Nationals are popular and lots of cities bid to host it, Rice said.

The “nationals” event is considered a winter rite, with the world championships held annually in February, he said.

After their initial success with the Cyclo-cross event, Mahoney and a colleague recently attended the National Association of Sports Commissions Symposium in Louisville, Kentucky, where they pitched the city’s charms to dozens of other sporting event organizers.

Representatives from an orienteering race will be in the region sometime in the coming months to check out the amenities here, after meeting Mahoney and her colleague at the Kentucky conference.

At the same time, the bureau’s staffers also are marketing the city to regional competition organizers, Mahoney said. Staffers are reinforcing their relationships with the Boulder Parks and Recreation department and the University of Colorado-Boulder athletics department so they can offer a variety of venues for events, she said.

The bureau also is marketing itself to residents with a www.bringyourconferencehome.com web page. The idea is that people who already live here are some of the bureau’s best boosters, Mahoney said. One page on the website gives organizers a financial incentive to fill hotel beds.

Once conference-goers are in Boulder, the bureau tries to offer them a unique experience – promoting the Boulder B-Cycle program’s rented red bicycles by offering ideas of things visitors can do by bike, for example, Mahoney said.

“You’re on a bike now, what other tours or what other things can you do when you’re in Boulder? Let’s keep the fun rolling,” Mahoney said.

As the bureau works to improve off-season visits, local hotel revenue per room was the highest ever in 2012, according to a report presented this month to the Boulder Hotel and Motel Association.

Hotel revenue per available room was $85.17 in 2012, a 4.6 percent increase from $81.41 the year before, according to the report done for the nonprofit local industry trade group, which represents 24 hotels and motels in the region.

The “revenue per available room” statistic is a key industry metric that’s calculated by using hotel occupancy and average daily room rate.

Local hotel occupancy was 68.5 percent for 2012, up from 67.4 percent in 2011. The average daily room rate was $124.42, up from $120.81 in 2011, according to the report, which was done by W.R. Hopping & Co. in Littleton.

Nationally, the “revenue per available room” was $65.17 in 2012, compared with $61.02 in 2011. Hotel occupancy nationally was 61.4 percent in 2012, compared with 59.9 percent in 2011. The average daily room rate was $106.10, compared with $101.85.