Visit Estes Park CEO may head home to Florida

ESTES PARK — Kara Franker, who left a tourism-promotion job in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, three years ago to become CEO of Visit Estes Park, may soon head back to the Sunshine State to manage tourism efforts in the Florida Keys.

A selection committee named Franker as the top candidate to be new director of the Monroe County Tourist Development Council, which — armed with a $60 million budget compared with Visit Estes Park’s $9.7 million — promotes visitation throughout the long island chain that stretches from the mainland just south of Miami west-southwestward to Key West. The council’s board of directors will meet Tuesday in Key Largo to vote on the commission’s recommendation.

At her final interview on Friday, according to keysnews.com, Franker told the committee that “ideas are nice” but “execution is everything.” She noted the importance of building trust and market share, the value of artificial intelligence, and how cuts to Colorado’s marketing budget had hurt the state’s tourism industry.

“I’m very torn,” Franker told BizWest on Monday. “I love the community of Estes Park, I have a great relationship with the town administration, and I’m so proud of all of the work we’ve done. We’ve accomplished so much in a short time period.”

Since Franker took the helm at Visit Estes Park, the local marketing district for the tourism-dependent town at the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, in May 2021, she directed a successful campaign to increase the lodging tax to help pay for workforce housing and related child care, and guided the move and expansion of the quirky Frozen Dead Guy Days festival from its original home in Nederland to Estes Park to help bolster the town’s economy during what otherwise would be a slow spring for visitation. She arrived as Estes Park was recovering from the effects of a disastrous wildfire that forced the town’s evacuation the autumn before and was still coping with restrictions imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Franker serves on several national boards, including the U.S. Travel Association, and was recently recognized as one of the 2024 Top Women in Travel and Hospitality.

Also under her tenure, Estes Park became one of Destinations International’s Destinations of Distinction, which Franker described as a “very rare” honor that is given to agencies for “exceeding best practices” in tourism promotion.

However, she added, “I also have to think about my family” who still lives in Florida, including her husband, Jeremy, who works for the federal government, and her 7-year-old daughter, Lola. Since taking the Estes Park position, she has shuttled back and forth between Colorado and her family’s home in Wellington, a city in Palm Beach County.

Franker is one of a series of officials who have split their time between Estes Park and homes elsewhere. Donna Carlson, who was hired in 2020 as president of the Estes Chamber of Commerce, routinely commuted 135 miles back and forth between Estes and her family in Colorado Springs for two years until family pressures forced her to resign and return to the shadow of Pikes Peak full time. Her successor as chamber president, Colleen DePasquale, came to Estes Park after 11 years as president and chief executive of the Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce and its nonprofit foundation for 11 years and also shuttled between Colorado and Florida for a time before finally establishing a permanent residence in Estes Park.

That history might persuade Visit Estes Park to name someone who lives in the area full-time to be her successor, Franker said, although the board would be likely to name an interim CEO and start a national recruiting process. “At least that is my guess,” she added.

Franker said one possible successor, at least on an interim basis, might be Visit Estes Park chief strategy officer Cindy Mackin, who was hired in April after serving as director of Visit Loveland.

Franker said she had informed the Visit Estes Park board of directors and staff that she had been recruited for the Florida position. If the Monroe County Tourism Development Council’s board approves her nomination Tuesday, contract negotiations would follow, Franker said. If an agreement is reached, she added, “I would formally resign at Visit Estes Park but give notice, and I need to talk to the board about how much notice that is. I don’t want to cut and run in two weeks.”

If Franker and the Florida Keys tourism board fail to reach an agreement, that board chose Nerissa Serrano-Okiye as an alternative. She has been director of tourism for the Martin County Office of Tourism and Marketing. Martin County is the next county north of Palm Beach County on Florida’s Atlantic coast.

If Franker does take the job in the Florida Keys, she’d be coming into a similar situation that greeted her when she was hired in Estes Park. She succeeded Eric Lund, who was asked to resign by the Visit Estes Park board in late 2020 after two years on the job over “personnel” issues that were not officially specified. “My first job in Estes was getting the organization on stable footing,” she said. “When I came in, there were a lot of broken pieces to put together.”

She could be dealing with some broken pieces in the Keys as well. According to keysnews.com, the Monroe County tourism board terminated the contract of previous director Stacey Mitchell on March 26 after the county’s Clerk of Court’s Office issued a trio of audits critical of her and the tourism council’s operations.

A native of Olathe, Kansas, Franker came to Estes Park with a varied portfolio of experience: She had been a journalist, a prosecuting attorney, a business owner, a marketing manager, a wife and mother, and even a cheerleader for the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs. Before taking the Visit Estes Park position, she had served two years as senior vice president for marketing and communications for Visit Lauderdale, which promoted tourism in Broward County, just north of Miami, with an annual budget of $30 million. She ran communications company Kara Franker Inc. from 2012 to 2019.