February 13th Minutes

We started with a reminder to add information to the blog regarding the SW Travel Region itineraries. They are due by next Wednesday so ideas before that would be appreciated. Sue Hillhouse suggested the Mesker Brothers iron work on the buildings in town.

Karen updated us on the contacts from colorado.com that we are sending an extended newsletter to. She'll post the topics on the blog so that we can help write.

Karen also informed us of the Cultural/Historical database from the CTO.

Holdover from last meeting: Karen & Lora compiled data from their hotels about where visitors come from. CO was number 1 by a landslide (no surprise!), the other top states are TX, AZ, CA, NM, UT.

We started on today's agenda. We spent a good amount of the time brainstorming lists of Key Attractions, Facilities & Organizations the we can partner with. Karen emailed the brainstorm as a .pdf document to the group. If you would like it and did not receive it, email her at boxcanyonlodge@gmail.com and she will email it to you.

Ralph suggested that it is important that we research the surrounding communities to see what they have to offer and what we can capitalize on that is specific to Ouray. Barbara offered to gather printed materials from the communities in the SW region and others said they would do research online.

Karen then asked us to develop a history of tourism for Ouray. Lora & Sara offered to work on that. Karen will also call Phil Icke to see if he can help. Tracy suggested that each of us take 15 minutes to do some research and then post our findings on the blog.

Our To-Do List for next meeting: Help write 2-3 sentences for the subjects in the SW Travel Region Itineraries, Help with content for colorado.com newsletter (Karen will have it on the blog), Consider "What Need Are We Trying To Meet", Research info on history of tourism in Ouray and marketing info on surrounding towns.