Lodgers' Tax Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Order. I'm alright. Right? Do we wanna do introductions?

Well, we have some

new people we can. Yeah. Okay. Let's go let's go ahead and do that. I'm Jennifer Olson. I'm the chair of the Leidris Tax Advisory Board, and I work at the Bradbury Science Museum.

My name is Connor Tharp. I also work at the Bradbury Science Museum, but I also work as a consultant for the Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area in Espanola, and I sit as the co chair for the Lodgers Tax Advisory Board.

I'm Kevin Holsapple, citizen at large.

I'm Sonia Reese. I am the general manager at the Wingate by Wyndham.

I'm Ellen Felton, and I'm the staff liaison to the Lodgers Tax Advisory Board.

I'm Laura Sabrine with the county attorney's office, and I am the assistant county attorney assigned to advise staff for the community development department.

And then we can go ahead and have the people online introduce yourselves since three of you are from one organization.

I I guess I'll go first. I'm Lindsay. I'm the account director here with Destination IQ.

I am Brian. I am the owner of Destination IQ.

And I'm Kirsten. I'm project manager with Destination IQ.

And I'm Melanie Hand, county counselor for Los Alamos.

Alright. Great. Thank you. So our next action is approval of today's agenda. It went out in the packet.

I'd like to move to approve today's agenda as presented.

I need a second.

I second.

Alright. Thank you, Sonia. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. So we'll go ahead and approve today's agenda. Sonya. Connor was the first. Sonya was the second. You're okay. We're good, Ellen. And then we have the minutes to approve from our August meeting. So I move to approve the LodgersText meeting minutes from August 19.

Second thought.

Oh, there you go. All right. So all in favor? Aye. Are there any opposed? All right. Now we're going to go to public comment. I don't see anyone here for public comment. Is there anyone online?

If there is anyone who would like to make a public comment online, please raise your hand. It appears that there is none. Alright.

Great. I'll let you catch up.

I

actually think you've done great. I just can Alright. Alright, so we're up to the year seven progress report.

Awesome. So we've started reviewing the Year seven progress report for some background. Today we will be going over 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, and 3.2 on the Implementation Action Plan. For the attachments, I have the entirety of the tourism strategic plan for reference. And then we will go over the actual 2.1 to 3.2 how do I want to describe this?

It's an Excel spreadsheet, essentially. So let me just get through our attachment a. You're gonna go about 80 some pages. It's about 40 in your guys' books since we front back them for those in person. Yep. Oh, here we go. Alright. Now I'll give everyone a second, and I will zoom in a little bit to help our people who are online following along. This was also sent out and is available on Legistar if you'd like to pull it up on your own computer. So I'm just going to kind of go through these.

So under 2.1 goals, the first action item is to continue to identify desirable locations for future lodging development and promote these to encourage full service lodging and boutique hotels to select Los Alamos. The Tourism Implementation Task Force submitted a letter to council recommending approval of a land grant to facilitate in development of a conference center co located with a full service hotel under the Marriott brand with a restaurant at the corner of 20th And Trinity. In 2022, the developer, TNJLA LLC, notified the county that they were not able to secure a financial guarantee for the project per the terms and deadlines set out by the county ordinances and associated sales agreement. So on on 08/09/2022, council approved an ordinance to terminate the project for public support. In addition, after the owner of Pajarito Mountain Ski Area purchased the former Hilltop House in 2015 and the property sat vacant.

In 2021, it was deemed a menace to public comfort, health, peace, and safety, and a violation of the fire code. The owner was ordered to demolish and remove all materials from the property. If you've been up here in town, you can tell that in September 2021, they did a clean and lean to execute a demolition and clean up the property before initiating some legal action to collect reimbursement from the costs. This was completed, and then in April 2024, the property was sold to Grand Mesa Partners four hundred LLC and Townhouse Rental. In January 2025, so that's this year, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved the site for the Guest House Hotel, which is owned by Grand Mesa Partners four hundred LLC and Townhouse Rental.

And the county is continuing to explore all options that will result in the development of another hotel or hotel and conference center. However, many of the available sites are privately owned, so that's not something we can directly help with. But if someone asks about it, we can point them in a direction of who might own property available. The next one is considered a top action priority, which is continue to explore hotel development incentive options such as land donations, infrastructure, investments, tax abatement, and or favorable financing to attract a developer to construct a full service hotel in Downtown Los Alamos. So Los Alamos has actively created and leveraged available programs to support the development of a full service hotel and additional infrastructure.

Efforts include evaluating opportunities through the Local Economic Development Act, LEDA, and Retail LEDA programs as well as creating metropolitan redevelopment areas in both Los Alamos and White Rock. These programs provide options such as infrastructure improvements, gap financing, and public private partnership opportunities to support and help make downtown investment more feasible and encourage hospitality projects that strengthen the local economy and visitor experience. And I apologize I didn't say this, but the first one obviously is a continuous status. And with the exploring incentives, that's obviously in progress. We are anticipating the MRA applications to hopefully go online in the 2026 for the community.

And also, I apologize, I'm not sure why the font is doing what it's doing, because it did not look like this before and it's throwing me for a loop here. I don't know if you guys see it, but it's like a little in out going on. The third one on this list is considered inactive. It was to prepare and coordinate design of a development package for each site to promote development opportunities, infrastructure and design expectations. So again, and this kind of goes back to the sites that existed was related to the guesthouse and that property is currently in the works with a private developer.

The next one is to identify parcels for new RV parks in both Los Alamos and White Rock. Issue an RFP, so request for proposal for an for operators, and then identify and facilitate a business to help invest, develop, and manage new high quality full service RV park for anticipated increase in tourism. That's considered in progress. The county manager's office, community development department, and community services department are actively looking at additional locations for RV parks, including service upgrades and improvements at Camp May up on Pajarito Mountain. The county is also exploring the potential for working with park developer operators.

And once those opportunities are identified, a request for proposal will be issued at that time. The last one under 2.1 is considered pending. It is to encourage UNM LA to provide a Hospitality Institute with a degree program, certificate and seminars. This initiative has not yet been responded due to prioritization of other programs at UNMLA related to fire programs, coding and other things that have since come up since this plan was created back in 2018. We now move on to 2.2.

So the first one was to create an event fund and marketing support opportunities so event organizers can apply for grant assistance through an application process. This is the county initiative, was identified to be the county as well as the Main Street program. So prior to COVID-nineteen, money was allocated for small project grants of up to $1,000 to an event organizer in the Los Alamos Main Street District. The county budgeted $10,000 per contract year for grants during that time, and this was done through an award process. In the latest contract with Los Alamos Main Street and Creative District, the county attorney determined this support might be in violation of the anti donation clause that exists in New Mexico, and therefore, we no longer fund this program.

Although it is no longer in the contract with Los Alamos Main Street, Los Alamos Main Street and Creative District and LACDC continue to support initiatives throughout the district through partnerships and sponsorships when they are reached out to. Additionally, under 2.2, we have another continuous effort which is to enhance Science Fest by better defining its purpose, desired outcome, and niche in attracting visitors. So post pandemic, the event kind of pivoted to offer more events for every audience, not just children. This included a co op grant through New Mexico True to help impact more statewide visitation along with the Discovery After Dark program for adults, which actually is up for our New Mexico Tourism and Hospitality Award tonight, which is very exciting for them. That came after I submitted all of this.

But it was determined that while this event can be marketed throughout the state, we are more focused on the locals and the day trippers for Science Fest because we see more engagement with that audience. Each year they continue to evolve the event and help expand the reach of STEAM participants and growing the economic impact from the event. So communications are ongoing about a statewide initiative to better link the national laboratories to regional communities, and one of those ways they're doing that is exploring perhaps a different time of year that might work better to do so in this coming year. Another continuous effort is to work with Pajarito Mountain Ski Area to develop opportunities to expand year round on mountain activities. So we continue to work with their general manager up there, Jason Bellamy, to discuss ways to help increase visitation.

The Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Project has begun, which aside from helping with fire suppression, will allow for snowmaking on the mountain during the winter months, so we can promise more of a season. And in addition, the mountain offers lift assisted mountain biking and hiking opportunities through the summer months. Another continuous effort is to support and create events that last for longer periods of time, like trail festivals with a variety of events. So the county held discussions about several potential events, but the infrastructure for camping and the availability of hotel rooms often is not great enough to support many of these events. However, the New Mexico Nyca biking event has been held on Pajarito Mountain in recent years.

We are also working with the TransRockies series right now to hopefully get them up here for a three day event that they're hoping to host in New Mexico this coming year. Again, that's another one that has recently come up, so that's not included here, But I do want to note that. And then on the inactive list we have assist endurance organizations with hosting by providing marketing support with special event funding application. Nonprofits and special groups, including endurance organizations focused on running, cycling, etcetera, who can't support an event can often get their fees waived by Los Alamos County. This is usually related to closing the streets, the cleanup process, etcetera.

Should GRT be increased, this concept is something lodgers tax could take on in the future. And then the last one under 2.2 is to explore opportunities to incentivize developing a multiuse event space that supports 300 people and accommodates meetings, community events, and destination event space. We consider that to be in progress. In 2022, that TNJLA LLC that I mentioned previously that planned to develop the hotel and conference center notified that they were not able to have the funds to create and have that project move forward. So on 08/09/2022, council terminated it, again, as I previously mentioned.

However, I I we do think it is very important to note that SALA Event Center has since opened and can host 100 to 200 person events in Los Alamos County. In 03/2001, we have two different ones here, both of which considered in progress. It is to implement county plans for extensions, upgrades, and maintenance of existing and new trails that benefit visitors and local community members of all activity skill levels and increase funding and staff to address all trail maintenance and improvement deficiencies. The county has completed ADA accessible trails like Kinnickinnick And Urban Trail, and Bio Canyon Equestrian Access was also completed through the Outdoor Recreation Plus grant. Three staff positions were added to the Trails and Open Space Division, and an ADA audit and transition plan was created and completed in 2023 for all trailheads.

The county is currently compiling all of their trail plans into a single trails and open space management plan with the draft currently out for review and public comment. That was back in July 2025. I believe that's continuing to move forward. I think we've seen a preview of the plan at this point, but off the top of my head, I cannot recall if that's officially been approved. But if you're interested, you can definitely look in Legistar for that plan and find out more details.

And then the other one under 3.1 is to make improvements to Overlook Park, including facilities needed to host tournaments. So field renovations have been completed for Hope Softball Field and Dara Jones Soccer Field. The Sperio Soccer Field renovations are currently underway which will make this facility better suited for events. And as of the July 2025, the artificial turf study was almost complete which included what the future might be in order to host sports tournaments at Overlook Park and on North Mesa up in Los Alamos. So now we move on to three point twos.

Bear with me, I think these are the last ones from this section. We consider this first one to be completed which is to ensure adherence to the Los Alamos County Downtown and Mixed Use District Development Standards, provide greater guidance and requirements for pedestrian environments, connectivity, streetscapes, and landscaping. And the county considers this project to be completed with updates to the Chapter 16 Downtown Zoning Standards and implementation of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Areas. The county also anticipates starting an update to the county's comprehensive plan beginning in 2026, which might allow for even more updates around that and guidance. Continuous effort is to reduce blight in the downtown districts through targeted and responsive commercial property maintenance of the county's code enforcement program.

So the White Rock MRA was approved in October 2022. In September 2025, the East Downtown Los Alamos MRA was approved by council. These districts can help reduce blight through additional public and private reinvestment dollars. The next one we consider to be in progress which is referencing the 2012 Los Alamos Downtown Sidewalk and Streetscape Assessment Report, improve the appearance and function of Trinity Drive by participating with New Mexico DOT in a streetscape improvement project, and maintain a connection between Trinity Drive to the Canyon Rim Trail. As of September 2025, two projects are in the late stages of design and were scheduled to be advertised for construction bids in late twenty twenty five for a construction start in 2026.

The projects that they are hoping to have the construction start in 2026 are the Trinity Drive Safety Improvements Project from Connect to Oppenheimer Drive and the Canyon Rim Trail Extension phase three a, which would connect Connect Street to 15th Street located on the South Side of Trinity Drive. Both projects will enhance pedestrian and bicycle connectivity within the Los Alamos Downtown Business District while also linking to the newly constructed urban trail north of Trinity Drive at 20th Street. And finally, the last one from three point two, which we consider to be a continuous effort, is to continue to implement the Main Street And Creative District events that draw visitors and provide additional activities that encourage extended stays, and continue to partner with local businesses and incentivize their participation in the Main Street And Creative District. Los Alamos County continues to work with Los Alamos Main Street and Creative District to help support events like Hollow Weekend, Science Fest, and WinterFest. These events not only benefit those who live here locally but also encourage people off the Hill to come up for our events or the weekend to participate in various activities.

Science Fest added Discovery After Dark in 2023 to help with that effort for adults. And in addition, Los Alamos County has updated their historic walking tour signage that includes the Oppenheimer House and the Manhattan Project era dormitory. In approximately 2023, Tuesdays at the Pond was moved to Tuesdays At The Square to better support the community business based on its location excuse me, business community. And Los Alamos Main Street And Creative District is also heavily involved in the month of arts and humanity to help curate a cultural celebration for art and history in our community in conjunction with the county and the Fuller Lodge Arts Council. In addition, the group works closely with the chamber for Small Business Saturday, which is coming up here soon, to bring people from the region to the area for promotions.

Los Alamos County, LACDC, and Los Alamos Main Street and Creative District work in tandem with local events and activities to provide gift bags, shopping and dining information, and other community highlights to help grow the business community as events come to the area. That is the entirety of going through those different ones. I will stand for any questions if you might have them on some of those specific topics. If not, yep, go for it. Okay.

On 2.2, I'm gonna call it point one, the first 2.2. Is there any possibility of, in the future, revisiting the granting? I know that Santa Fe County does granting, Taos County, and Ria Riba County does granting. And when, the heritage area applies for grants, we've been really successful in driving some funding to projects that we're working on locally. So I'd like to see if there's a possibility for that to move forward in the future at some point.

I think it could be a future discussing discussion having spoken with other lodgers tax advisory boards. Some of them are making enough funding that they can do more than just keep marketing. Right? And that would be a potential opportunity you might be able to explore as to where those funds could come from. I I definitely think it's something that you you could investigate and see if there's a way.

Obviously, kind of the higher level with some of the contracts and things, it's a little differently. But I think there definitely could be an opportunity to speak to other lodgers tax boards about how they take that approach. And I know a couple of them only do applications once or twice a year. Mhmm. And and so you'd have to definitely plan your event in advance, but it's something you could consider as an advisory board as to how the funds are spent.

Is there a process that the board would need to go through to make sure that that would become a line item in the budget at some point? What's the so just so we have, like, a timeline so we're not behind the ball.

Yeah. So all of the budget stuff directly goes to council during meetings that are held in March. Give me one second. I'm literally pulling up something from the conversation this morning.

Okay.

So I can give you kind of those timelines because we are already starting to talk about the budget Oh, perfect. For 2026. I would say that any anything that you might want to suggest to counsel probably should go before mid Feb February would be my potential recommendation, and that's just because that's kind of when they're having their final department budget review meetings for those discussions. The proposed budget book is anticipated to come out by the March, and so by that point with the April budget hearing dates, I think it would be important if you wanted to bring any kind of suggestion to counsel to have that done prior to that date so they have some time to think about it and have a discussion if they feel it's rendered.

Thank you. Mhmm. I've got a couple of comments and a question. One is I think Connor's absolutely right. That particular area would be, I think, real helpful to see more more emphasis put into the, you know, this the excuse that there's some kind of a legal issue, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

I mean, the state's giving out lots of money for events, they're under the same law as everybody else. So I think it's a matter of public benefit that there has to really be demonstrated public benefit for that. But I think putting some attention back to that could be very helpful to a lot of things in the community. Second thing on the last 2.2, I don't know if you're aware of it, but not only is SALA there now, but they've announced and actually are promoting an interest in expansion to create a ballroom. And I don't know if the county is paying any attention to that or not or hooking up.

I don't know if we have any role in getting them to pay any attention. But if the if it looks like we do because of it's in the strategic plan. But that's a very direct thing that could be engaged with to try to meet that strategic goal item if there's somebody would do it or or I don't know who that is. To have that discussion with them and see what are the possibilities there and actually make something happen

Yeah.

There on that one. A question I have is, is there what is the process for refreshing the action items in the strategic plan? So

we definitely part of the reason we are kind of going through this and determining the status of everything is to determine what is to help determine what still needs to be completed. And then as an advisory board, you know, you guys can have a conversation and identify of all of these things, what do you think are the top priorities that you'd really like to take to counsel and say, we really think you need to help get over the finish line with x item, right? And so that's kind of the process for that. But as far as updating the items as a whole, it hasn't officially been approved but I would say that I would anticipate with the fact that 2028 will be here before we know it and the plan will be ten years old that there likely will be an update that we'll want to have to the tourism strategic plan because we are looking at a plan and action items from pre COVID. And I think it's fair to say a lot of different things have changed since then.

Is there any reason that the lodgers tax board should shouldn't proactively just undertake that and say, hey. Let's, yeah, Point out the things that need help getting over the finish line. Stop talking about the oldie moldy things that that don't seem to be going anywhere and and actually talk about the things that could be there that that create new focus.

I think that could definitely be a part of the discussion when it comes to where things are currently at and where they should go in the future and what you're identifying. I think that definitely should be a part of the conversation because I agree some of these things, you know, they from what we've gone through thus far, sometimes they're considered inactive because they're just simply kind of irrelevant to where we are at times now. So I definitely think it's something that would be worth having in the conversation and whatever you guys determine once we get through the whole plan to take to counsel, that's definitely something that you could identify and bring to the table as well.

I think a lot of the foundation is fine, but the working on the action items could be good. I don't know know that there needs to be any start from scratch or anything like that.

Connor, did you have another question?

With this document being ten years old, I assume that it's something that would have to be budgeted for because it looks like we paid probably a pretty penny to design workshop for creating it several years ago. So is that something that we, again, need to put before council? I Our plan is almost ten years old. We'd like to

I believe that that would just be something that you include that in your recommendation to where the action items are to say to them, you know, we recognize you're probably gonna go to them in 2026. This plan is eight years old at this point. Right? Because we're in year seven review right now. And say we really would like to see and would advise to you that, you know, recognizing it's almost it's getting to the point where it's past five, almost on the side of 10, that we recommend that you start planning your budget to include a new tourism strategic plan to move move tourism forward.

You know, one of the things I think we should look at is alternatives. I I think the county is very way too quick in so many situations to hire some consultant to come do it. And I I don't know that it needs to cost that much, frankly, to to do do an update that gets gets us updated where we need without needing to think of it as the way it's always been done, which is to hire some expensive consultant and spend tens of thousands of dollars and all of that in in months and months and months.

Yeah. I definitely think all those comments are something that you could include when you, you know, bring your recommendation forward to counsel for sure of other ideas or recommendations about how to go about updating this plan.

Yes?

I took a lot of notes. Two point two point five talks about the GRT. Should the GRT be increased, this concept is something LTAP could take on when it's talking about special event funding. With the GRT recently being increased, do you see a path forward from moving that from inactive to in progress?

During the increase of the GRT, this portion and this idea was never discussed. But again, I think it's something that if you as a board feel strongly enough about, it's something that you could bring forward to them as something you would recommend and how you feel it would benefit the community as to how those funds are being spent.

Thank you. I have another question. Three the first 3.1 3.1 o. Yeah. What I guess I can look up the trails and open space management plan, but does the Rodeo Arena have any, tie in with lodgers tax funding because that could be used as an event space bringing in more, I don't know, Western style events that are so loved in New Mexico?

So during the council meeting where they were discussing Brewer Arena, I wanna say that was was that last the beginning of last month, I wanna say?

It was about a month ago.

Uh-huh. And during that conversation, I was also there because we were going forward with the Tourism Marketing Services Agreement. It was asked what can lodgers tax funding be spent on, and it was identified that the Brew Arena project could potentially be identified as something that lodgers tax funds would go to due to it being something that could bring people to the area if we were to say have more rodeos or have more events up in that space. That's about as far as the conversation went, was yes. And so to answer your question, that is something that could be considered for how the funds would be spent is on that project.

I think that was it. Thank you. Awesome.

Great. Thank you, Ellen. So I think now we're on to the Destination IQ presentation.

I'll start us off by just kinda giving the the body of the text here and some context for everyone. So on 07/03/2025, the county advertised a formal competitive solicitation for tourism marketing services through invitations for bid in an RFP process. 14 responses were received on August 5 and the evaluation committee recommended awarding the contract to Global Visa Technologies Incorporated doing business as Destination IQ. On October 7, County Council voted to enter into an agreement for tourism marketing services with Global Visa Technologies doing business as Destination IQ to to replace an expiring contract and align future promotional strategies under a single comprehensive contract. The selected contractor services are governed by the terms negotiated with the county to help ensure compliance with our standards and procurement policies.

And this agreement replaced the marketing services agreement that expired on 09/28/2025. That was with Sunny five zero five, as you guys know because you were a little bit of part of the process of what we wanted to look for when we were looking for a new the when the RFP went open. This provides new opportunities to expand outreach, enhancing branding and strengthen tourism promotion for the county. Some background information on this, the agreement that we have with Destination IQ is three years. It should be noted the base fees of the contract are $113,100, so that's about a $137,700 a year with optional services of up to but not to exceed a little over $1,000,000.

And as described in the agreement, some of those optional services include but are not limited to organic social media, influencer management, grant writing, newsletters, a website refresh, and on-site staffing for events. For example, should an event like a multi day bike race be held in Los Alamos? This would help fund additional advertising opportunities for the county. So adding these two amounts together is the total not to exceed contract agreement amount of $1,483,100. And I do have as one of the attachments the recorded agreement if you are interested in reviewing that and seeing fully what services that Destination IQ will be kind of providing for us.

But aside from that, Destination IQ is here today to give you a presentation.

Will let you

guys take it from here.

Yeah. Thank you. Welcome, everybody. I'm so glad to be here. As you see, I have two of my other, team members here, Brian, the president and owner of Destination IQ, and, Kirsten, who acts as our project manager for Los Alamos.

I wanna take some time to introduce us as an agency and what our philosophies are and how we feel like what we believe in, about tourism and destination management aligns with, Los Alamos' goals. So, yeah. Perfect, Ellen. You can just keep scrolling and as we go through this. So core belief here at Destination IQ is that every community deserves to be a destination that prospers from the economic impact provided by tourism, improves the quality of life for visitors and residents, and grows sustainably without the effects of overtourism.

I'd love to stress our belief in, improving the quality of life for residents. We've learned over the last several years the importance of really focusing our efforts on on the locals and the community, at large. It really helps with getting support for tourism and growing tourism. Commitment to collaboration and transparency. At Destination IQ, we believe sustainable tourism growth begins with collaboration and transparency.

In addition to working closely with our immediate points of contact, we actively engage lodging tax boards, local governments, business owners, and community stakeholders through every stage of our process. By keeping communication open, ensuring all voices are heard, we foster shared ownership of tourism initiatives, building trust trust aligning goals, and creating long term strategies that benefit both residents and visitors alike. We'll talk in just a little bit what with how we're gonna keep the lodging tax board well informed of our activities, be open for feedback. This is part of our plan. So, know that that I'll address that in just a little bit.

Just a quick overview of our leadership team. So we have Brian and Kirsten here. We have, a social media manager, Ashley, a technical director, Sean. Tina Jordan does, graphic design as well as client relations, and we have Jim who is our content manager. In addition to this leadership team, we work with, I think, about 25 plus vendors that, have very niche skills and talents that we tap depending on what project we're involved in.

So our our team really extends beyond this, but these are the folks that are in every day, nine to five. So we you can scroll. Okay. So we love to include this visual because it really helps describe how we like to partner with our client. So we really see us as an extension of your staff or your team.

We like to say that we fill the gaps, whether it's, time or expertise. We have all the folks on hand that can help you out. And that team is flexible. Like I said, we not just our leadership team, but we have a large network of vetted vendors that we've worked with over the years that we pull in when we have specific project needs. So by doing so, we feel like that really helps create a true partnership.

And as a result, many of our clients have become lifelong friends. We've worked with them year after year. They call us with all sorts of needs. It runs the gamut, but we're here, to help with almost anything that helps that occurs in destination management and marketing. And, as you can see from this visual, we put our client at the center, then the direct contact with the account director, which is me at this time for Los Alamos, and then our project manager, Kirsten, makes sure that all the projects that we have contracted to execute are then created on time and and professionally by any number of our staff or vendors, and they can run the gamut from digital marketing, public relations, creative design, SEO, and those are those little circles that you see kind of surrounding our our bubble there.

So k.

I touched on this a little bit, but this is, an overview of our subcontractor network and the types of services that, they provide. So traditional marketing, digital marketing, reporting analytics, public relations, photography, web development, you name it. And if we don't have a vendor that can execute a project that comes to mind, we'll find one. So that's another really great thing about this model is that we're not limited with our core staff. We've been known to come up with some wild and fun new marketing ideas and then have had to go out and find the right person to execute that.

We're always looking for the best talent. So so that's just an overview of our subcontractor network. Alright. We like to define destination management because, in the world of DMOs, everyone always talks about destination marketing. Destination management started coming into the, conversation a few years ago.

We've been using it for quite a while now once we started realizing, one, the onset was overtourism. So, we're based in Colorado. We have a lot of Colorado clients. Overtourism is a big issue here. So we started addressing that several years ago, by creating campaigns that promoted responsible tourism, that attracted people that, were more likely to follow leave no trace principles.

But then, what we have found more recently is destination management now also extends into, stakeholder and community engagement, which is quickly becoming a priority of ours. Learning that if, local stakeholders aren't informed of what's happening in tourism departments, don't have an a forum where their voices are heard, where they can't see the results, then it creates an environment where it makes it more challenging for tourism to grow. So we we we kind of include stakeholder and community engagement in destination management as well. But destination management to us is a continuous long term partnership supporting areas, regions, counties, and cities in all aspects of tourism. It includes, but is not limited to, consulting, marketing, and advertising, enhancing visitor experience and visitor education, tourism advocacy, strategic planning, tourism product development, grant writing, budgeting, research, creative design, and consulting on social, economic, cultural, and environmental matters.

So, hopefully, that gives you an idea that we're much more than a marketing agency. We really can handle all facets of, destination management and have the staff to do it. So k. When we look at if you bring folks in too quickly, it's really alarming for locals. Businesses may not be prepared for it.

We want a nice, steady, sustainable growth all around. For stakeholders collaborating with, residents, businesses, government, and community partners to align tourism goals, ensure shared benefits, and foster collective ownership of destination success. Again, I'll talk about ways that we involve stakeholders. That's everything from newsletters and surveys to organic social media. We use organic social media actually quite a bit to engage local businesses and to make sure that, they know that they're being represented, on the Visit Los Alamos accounts.

We also engage in education and advocacy. So, we promote awareness of tourism's value, and provide stakeholders, residents, and visitors with the knowledge and tools to responsible, informed participation in a destination's growth and stewardship. So these this could be, like, little facts about how tourism is helping the community, little wins that we have, tax breaks that households may get because of visitor spending. But if a community is more aware of how visitation can help them achieve a better quality of life, they're more likely to support it. And then also just hearing from us keeps them in the know and and feel

so that

they don't feel like they're in the dark anymore. And finally, of course, visitor experience. So the heart of it, we want visitors to come to Los Alamos and really have a beautiful and special time. And we help create experiences and digital platforms or physical interpretation that allows for that. Okay.

You can go on, Ellen. Okay. So I wanna dive into our current contract so that everybody is aware what deliver deliverables are outlined and what the expectations are. This year, there's quite a bit of planning. And then year two, there's more execution outlined in the contract.

But, currently, we're wrapping up the interim marketing plan. And so what that is, what that has become is a six month marketing plan starting November 1 this year, and it goes to the April. The reason being is that gives there's some there's some deliverables in that that we start that Destination IQ started November 1, and then there's some that Ellen's gonna pick up, and take over starting in January. And, at the April, we'll we'll have an annual marketing plan that will will continue from May 1 forward. And that interim marketing plan outlines several marketing strategies, from, digital marketing and organic social media to newsletters and details, tactics and what sort of content you may wanna include and, as well as KPIs.

So, Ellen and I have been working on that. That's due the December. It's all written, and it's currently in a design phase. So we're moving along with that. Initial marketing assessment.

This is an opportunity for us to evaluate the current state of Los Alamos' tourism marketing. So, this is when we start really analyzing the data in more detail and make recommendations for, some additional, marketing opportunities we feel would be beneficial or maybe which ones we may wanna knock out moving forward, based on the data. Around the same time, we'll deliver a tourism marketing plan, and this is when we dive really deeply into all the data that's available to us. Particularly, I know it's a forefront of LTAP is visitor spending visitor spending and visitor visitation data. So that's something that we'll get from PLACER, which is which the county has a subscription to, but we'll look at all the platforms and historic data.

It's taken us we what do we our contract started October 9. We now have access to all the data to all the platforms that we will have access to. So we had to work with some previous owners of platforms to make sure that we were given access. So we've been working on that the last month, and I think we're all wrapped up on that. So that will be a really great opportunity for us to see what data we have available to us and then hopefully have the data that we need to answer the questions and address the goals of LTAP as well.

The fact that you have Placer is great. That's gonna give us a lot of data. So not every DMO has access to a platform like that, so it's really great. After that, we're gonna write a whole a full year marketing plan. So it will be similar to the interim marketing plan and structure.

It's gonna have a lot of detail on what to do every month over the course of a year, per all the strategies that we recommend. And the transition and integration support, this is kind of what we're wrapping up now, getting access to all the current accounts, meeting with folks that are engaged with some of the current marketing activities. For example, we've spent a bit of time this month wrapping our heads around the NM True co op and meeting folks from, the NM True team and diving into the fiscal year twenty six co op program and ensuring that we have all of our ducks in a row to continue delivering on those, deadlines to take, you know, take advantage of the co op. We'll be meeting in person and virtually, on a pretty regular, cadence. So we've been meeting with Ellen once a week, and we all we all we have accounting spreadsheets kind of all set up to make sure that Ellen has a full picture of everything that's all the invoices that are coming in, everything's that's getting paid, and and the breakdown's monthly.

And then also the meetings with LTAP are part of this contract. So we'll be here at every meeting. We can give you a review of anything that's going on. This deck that we're looking at now will actually be your running deck. So I'll add to it every time we meet, and it will be a document that will be available to all of you, and you can review it.

And it will be the same link all the time because it's the same document. And then in person meetings, we'll schedule a few in person meetings as well that will come down to Los Alamos. Brian is I think, Brian, you're just four hours away, so in Buena Vista. So I'm volunteering him for the in person meetings. Alright.

As we continue on, we will be coming to Los Alamos the December. We'll be in town the December for three full days. And, that's an opportunity for us to meet local stakeholders, business owners, visit attractions, see what really makes Los Alamos tick. And I believe Ellen already has some meetings, scheduled, and that's gonna be an opportunity for you to meet us in person and ask questions. We'll probably have some surveys ready to go so we can gather some sentiment while we're there in person.

So these are really valuable trips. We do them with every client that we, contract with. It's also really nice to meet each other in person, so, it definitely helps with creating a connection. We provide lots of reporting, so I'll share this in a moment. Actually, Ellen, can you open that our meeting deck?

Yes. I

think I shared shared that with Yeah. Okay.

Share screen and then

Okay.

See if it'll let me pop over here.

Okay.

Okay. Do you have a specific part you want me to go?

Nope. This is just fine, and I'll maybe just have you scroll through it slowly in just a moment. But every time that I meet that Kirsten and I meet with Ellen, we have a deck with an agenda and all the items we wanna discuss. And this really becomes our bible. Because you can see already we have I don't even know how many slides.

Too many. We provide an overview of everything we're working on, any questions we have, links to deliverables. So this goes kind of above and beyond just a regular marketing part report where you get numbers. This is detail of all of our activity and all of our conversations. And you can click through some of these just so folks can kinda get an idea.

Our last meeting, it was actually just yesterday. We were touching base on the, co op deliverables that are due in January, and we wanted to make sure we had everything we needed to begin execution. And so this way, Ellen can or us, you know, can easily report on any sort of actions that are being taken or conversations that are being had. I often use these. If I have to make an end of the year report, it's everything is here.

So so in addition to our reporting contracts so the reporting con the the reporting part of this contract is a monthly report, which is a data report, a quarterly report, also data, and an annual report. Mhmm. This this provides the narrative of what we're doing, and I'll probably pull stuff out of here for each one of those smaller reports as well because this is a lot for someone to sift through, and our reports will be made public to anybody who wants to see them. So Yeah. So our reporting goes a little bit above and beyond just the numbers.

We like to include all the actions that we're taking because we're doing more than just marketing currently because of that management key, piece that I mentioned earlier. But I just wanted to share this. It's something we do. I've I've said in another agency meetings, and I don't see anything like this. So, anyway okay. Ellen, you could jump back to the other one. Okay. So starting November 1, we launched your meta ads, which are Facebook and Instagram ads. So we're managing those as well as your Google search ads. So those drive traffic to the Los Alamos visit Los Alamos website.

There are a couple of months this year where n m true will run some of these ads through through the coop, and so we'll strategically pause some of our ad groups so there's no overlap. So that's a marketing service that we're executing starting, this month. Design services, we have, a contract to any any design service that's required, that's needed. It's kind of a bucket we'll just continue to pull from. We have a great design team, so that's available.

And then, we're helping Alan manage her New Mexico True Co op as well. So and we talked a little bit about this. There's there's potential opportunity in years to in the next two years to engage in additional marketing opportunities, and this is a list of some of the things that we may recommend or that some of the things that we may actually end up doing. I think we have organic social and PR on the contracts for year two and year three. But as we dive into some planning and and we perhaps reevaluate budget or Ellen lets us know.

These are just other things that we can do for the for the county. K. Alright. This is the fun part. Community engagement with LTAP.

So we had an intro to Destination IQ. We ended up, distributing it as a press release. And one of the questions we'll have when we're down for our immersion trip and we meet you and the rest of the folks in the community who want to stay engaged is how you best prefer to hear from us. Typically, we'll do a newsletter or quarterly newsletter that's an update on everything that's going on with the opportunity to connect with us. So we may switch to that, if that's how folks prefer to hear from us as opposed to a press release or a publication in the local, paper.

You will have if pardon me. I'm getting I'm stumbling here. The meeting deck that I just showed that Ellen just shared with you, the the long running meeting deck, I'm more than happy for anybody to take a look at that. If anybody wants a link, we're there's nothing we're not hiding anything in there. We we're more than happy to show you everything that we're doing and communicating with and links to documents.

So and in addition to that, you'll have this LTAB meeting deck as well. So you'll see it's kind of a similar strategy. Each time I meet with you, I'll have a deck with some information to share and updates on the projects we're working on. So touch base quarterly stakeholder newsletters, and emails. So, we we put that together.

We'll use, the city's Constant Contact account. So it's just nicely designed and highlights, some really key data and some fun initiatives that we're working on. We'll likely put together what we call ACE. It's our advocacy community engagement infographic, and it's a design single PDF that shows where the money's coming from from visitors, what it's what it's doing for the community, what the r ROI is. Lots of really fun figures that, help, advocate for tourism.

And we put it in a, like I said, a single PDF that's visually appealing, and it's easy to share. And then we'll promote events through Meta Ads. It's a great platform for getting event promotion out there or getting the word on events out there, and we're already in communication with some folks in the community who, kind of are in the know about events, and we're receiving those off already. So, and we have a we kind of tend to start that promotion six to eight weeks ahead of time. Unless it's a bigger event like ScienceS, we'll probably start that sooner.

You can keep going, Ellen. I just wanna make a a point about communication. We would love to hear from all of you all of your concerns, dreams, wishes. We just ask that you send your comments or your questions through Ellen first and have her send it to us. It's just the streamlined communication structure helps prevent miscommunication and keeps messaging aligned and maintains an organized record of requests. So and I just wanted to point that out. K. Ellen, you can keep going. That's it. That was a mouthful.

Thank you all for listening. I wanna open the floor for any questions that you all might have or comments or requests.

I had a question. I was looking at the compensation rate schedule. What is the difference? Maybe Ellen can address this between the monthly performance report, which you get one per month, the annual performance presentation reporting, the and the LTAP meetings?

I can answer that. So the monthly report's gonna be pretty data heavy. So at the start of each month, we report on the previous month's data. We have a year we have at least a year's worth of analytic data for Los Alamos, so what's nice is we can do a year to year comparison. We like to do we like to look at year over year in tourism because tourism is so seasonal.

It's not very fair to compare September with August at times or May with June just because of, people's availability for travel. And, so what you'll get is a live digital report that's broken down by all of the individual initiatives. So you'll have Google Analytics, which is all of your website data. You'll have a page on just your meta ads and a page on just your Google Ads with all metrics. But in addition to that, what we also like to provide, I've I kind of mentioned this before, but it's a narrative behind the work that we do.

So rather than just say, this number went up and this number went down, we like to provide background on what changes we made that much, what are month what initiatives or what optimization strategies do we put in this month so that you have an accounting of the work that we're doing. So that will also be included on that. So those are the monthly reports. And then quarterly data, we'll just we'll look at full quarters. It will be very similar, but we're gonna look at a larger chunk of time.

And then a year report is looking at all the actions of the year, including data, how it has, changed year over year. Because at that point, hopefully, we start getting lodging tax data and sales tax data so we can really have a full picture on how our initiatives have affected, visitor growth in the county. And then and then LTAP is is just our meeting here where I'll check-in and just say, this is what we're working on. This is what we've seen. These are our wins.

These are you know, if we have any struggles, I'll share those as well. But the the goal with the LTAP report and meeting is really to connect with the folks in this room and to remain transparent and to come with some open ears. Is that a phrase? I'll make it one. With some open ears and, be available to listen and to, enact strategies or changes that, would appeal to the board.

Thank you.

Comment a couple questions. The you know, I really like the the philosophy that you promote in your promoted in your submittals about the collaboration and transparency. I think that's that'd be a huge step forward here. The and so I'm really hopeful that that's that really turns out to be a a real plus for what you guys will do. Couple questions. Have you identified work under the agreement that may be able to be subcontracted with local businesses here in Los Alamos or White Rock?

That's a good question. I think that's gonna come up when we start developing our annual strategy or our annual plan. The interim plan, marketing plan, is is short term. It's it's meant to run through the April. And the, the responsibilities for execution are currently split between Destination IQ and Ellen.

But when I come with a much larger strategy with additional items, I think that's and and I love this idea that you brought up. I think that it it would be worth having a conversation with Ellen and and to check-in on what her capacity is and what can be kind of filtered into the community by folks who are willing to execute on those items. So the interim plan is really what can be done like, what what do we have capacity for between Destination IQ and Ellen through April? And then the larger plan, will have additional strategic additional strategies and would need for additional capacity for execution.

I I do encourage you to look at that because I think there's a lot of talent here, and there's there's probably and that actually feeds right into this whole idea about community acceptance and all of that. You know, as I heard you speak about all of these deliverables and reports and meeting decks, is it possible you can just put all those in a public folder so that totally transparent, we can easily and and they basically build up over time, we can easily have access to those, and and anyone who wants can kinda see what's going on.

A 100%. All of these are are, like I said, I'm more than happy to share any of them. And we also the reason I keep a single running deck is so that I don't have a dozen different links. If you you know, you can bookmark one or two links and have access to everything. So, Ellen, let's make a note to create that folder. And for now, we can dump the LTAB meeting deck, and I'm more than happy for the meeting deck that you and I have to go in there as well.

I think any deliverables would be good. Like, with the prior contract, I could never get ahold of any of the deliverables that that they were supposedly

Yeah.

Yeah. Or not. I shouldn't say any, but quite a few of them that they that they were supposedly providing.

And we can put them all into that folder individually. But the the other thing is so the meeting deck that I work with with Ellen, that will have a link to every deliverable that we execute.

Mhmm. Good.

So you can scroll through that and you can see week to week or, you know, if we move into a biweekly cadence eventually, like, you'll see sections with with headers. It's very well organized with links to everything that we develop because we have everything in our Google Drive, so it's all accessible. We share links to all of it. So we can do it both ways.

Well, if that's in that folder, then it has all those links. Right? So, yeah, it's kinda so that's good.

The deck will have the links to the, you know, the ads, for instance, like creative that are developed or any other activity that we do. So the deck will be the best place to start to find that material. Yeah.

Mhmm. And and that I actually use my so I I with all of my clients, I have this running meeting deck, and I use it myself all the time. So if I need to find a a file, I'll I'll be like, I know we talked about it last week, and I go right to the meeting deck, and it's there. So it becomes a very useful tool.

Sounds like it'd be the first place to go. Mhmm. My my last question is for the the staff. What what would be the what will be the process and most LTAP board's involvement in decisions to release any of these optional work activities?

That is an absolutely great question. A lot I will say that the optional services are anticipated to likely not come from lodgers tax funding, but county funding just because lodgers tax only has so much that exists. Right? But I definitely I I think it's something that should be a discussion amongst a few different people before we make a decision if there is a time where we see our lodgers tax increase because your job is to advise the county on how those funds are being spent. So I I think it would be important to have you as a part of that conversation for sure.

And as it was noted when we went to counsel with the agreement proper, depending on how much it is, it will need to go in front of counsel for approval. Well, we would like their approval even though with them approving the entirety of the not to exceed that is so large, we don't totally need to. We still are going to value their input as well as to where our funds are being spent, especially if it's the county dollar and not the lodgers tax dollar. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Once again though, I'd like to remind that our purview for our work plan, I I realized the statutory stuff, but they're asked but the council is looking to us to advise them overall on tourism matters, not just lodgers tax or not just the statutory aspect of it. So Mhmm. Yeah. K. Thank you.

And once those conversations happen, that also leads into your previous question about local staffing and local talent. You know, should should part of the plan come out that it it, it makes sense to have someone local do a task. That's certainly our first choice to make that happen. Good.

Yeah.

And they didn't say it on here, but I will say it so you are all aware if you have not seen. There are a few different meetings during their immersion visit for a variety of different groups of people. So the tourism attractions were sent a specialized invite from sort of a working group we had last year. So they'll have a meeting with Destination IQ. We also have one that is more of kind of a meet and greet is what we're calling it with businesses in our community and that will be November 9 or excuse me, December 9.

And that is going to be at Project Y at 05:30. More details to come. I know LACDC is kind of helping us host that one, so they're kind of running it. And then the public one for everyone is going to be December 10, which is Wednesday at 05:30 p. M.

At SALA Event Center. I know based upon your backgrounds, there might be one that you feel more inclined to attend or perhaps you got an invite to based upon your job. I definitely encourage making sure with your chair that you don't have an issue with quorum, but attending at least one to just kind of see what the pulse on the community is around tourism would not be a bad thing if you are available. And then, yeah, aside from that, the and on the other side of that, the national parks are back open, so they will be able to see everything when they come for their visit next month.

Alright. Any other questions before we move on? So we're wondering if we can take a quick five minute break before we continue.

I don't see why not. Sure. Yeah. So back at 01:25. Sound good?

And and the destination IT IT. The destination IQ team is likely gonna bounce. We have another council meeting at 01:30, so we need a prep for that one as well. But we really look forward to meeting all of you when we come down in December, and I hope that you could all meet come to one of the meetings that Ellen has so graciously put together for us. K. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Bye bye. Yeah.

We are. And I have to be at the end of this. That was my boxing.

Are you gonna make it?

It is 01:25, so we are going come back from the break. And now, Connor, our vice chair, will be running the meeting since our chair had to head out with the time crunch.

Alright. So moving on to our next item on the agenda. Holzapple recommendations for characterizing and improving the economic benefit of tourism to Los Alamos County. And I believe he sent some PowerPoints this morning to supplement that. So take it over, Kevin.

Yeah. What what I sent this morning, there's nothing at all different than what was in the the report that came out with the agenda. So, hopefully, if you read that, there's nothing gonna be surprising to you. But I wanted to move through it quickly. I've actually gotta get get out of here at about no later than, I don't know, a quarter two or 10 tells. So I'll try to move move quick. So so next next, please. Or do I have the ability to forward these?

Next slide.

Yeah. So so I've suggested a couple agenda items for quite some time and I'm glad that they they showed up this time. You know, they really go come right from the strategic plan and strategic plan goals. One of which is increasing the capture of visitor dollars. That's that's one of the things that the plan really is intending that we're doing things that will help that.

And then similarly, when we when I surveyed businesses early in the year, and that was all shared with the the board, and I think in the February meeting, you know, they they want projects to increase spending and duration stay as well. So those are very much aligned, and I think they're pretty important things. As I listened as we were going through the kinda laundry list of the action items, you know, it's it's hard to make a lot of connections between those and and I think this concept. So I think some real improvements are possible. So next, please.

You know, there there are in the agenda document, there are a number of data gaps that are talk that are spoken to. And one thing we have no we apparently have no concept of is what is visitor average visitor spending, average daily visitor spending and in what places. That seems like to be a very big gap. And I was glad to hear a couple of things in the earlier presentation and that are been passed on through the RFP that hopefully we're gonna see some things there. But I think it's critical that we really start getting a handle on what is the economic benefit.

We know, hey. Are more people coming to various places, but we have no we have no visibility on expenditures. And I think similarly, understanding what are really high value segments of tourists and visitors is gonna be is really important because some people spend very little, other categories of people spend quite a lot. And so focusing on the people who are our best the our best candidates for helping us get more economic benefit is something that the data can help guide us to. Next, please.

So I in the in that agenda recommendation, I had four recommend recommended actions for us to consider. It's not like we have to sit here and do nothing. We absolutely can do things that would really move us in the direction of addressing this addressing this item. And so these four, we could do any one of them. Of course, the options are there's do nothing, which I hope we're not gonna do, but we could do any one of these.

But the next slide, I actually crafted a motion that would really combine them. So if you could go to the next slide, please. So this would be a proposed motion that would take in how we might actually say, yeah, let's do let's do something. Let's get a working group going that we we obviously don't have the bandwidth to deal with these things in our regular meetings and in our our record in the regular course of our meetings. And that's what a working group is for.

And this is something that I've that's pretty much the same thing I've been trying to suggest for a while is that we really get a working group and a larger set of people working on bringing to us ideas and proposed recommendations for us, then we can consider those. Because, again, we're we're never gonna get anywhere if we're trying to deal with these kinds of questions in the course of of this type of a meeting. So so this proposed motion, I don't know if we can even do a motion, but this is the kind of thing that would actually define how could we move forward and do something with this. So that that's kind of the report on that one.

Can I make a comment? Yeah. Sure.

What I

think is interesting about the motion that you have here with reviewing existing visitor data sources, I think having the new contractor is gonna show us a lot of gaps in our or blind spots from what we were looking at before. So I'd kinda be interested in what they have to say after their emergent experience before we jump to duplicating possible work that they're gonna be doing. Does that

So, yeah, I don't think we advertise we were taking action today.

No. We did not. They are presentations.

Say that a proposed motion like this could be at the for instance, our next meeting would be after that. And so the other thing is I think this would if we were doing something like this, it will really help them. And it will really help them have that ongoing do exactly what they say is important and want to do which is really engage regular local ideas and and work on this this kind of thing. You know, there's no action to take today, but I'll continue to suggest that we bring this forward and with a, you know, maybe the next opportunity say, hey, why wouldn't we move ahead with something like this? So one of the other things we could say is all of that stuff that's in these reports, we want to make sure that the contractor makes that part of what they look at in their various activities.

And that's another way to go about it and actually have a motion that would do that as well. So we might even have a look at a couple different motions. But if it's not very well communicated to the contractor, the interest and importance in something like this, it's hard to know whether it will how well it would get addressed and just what they would tend to do anyway.

Does the chamber do any of this data collection? I know the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce does quite a bit of engaging with hotels and local businesses to see how spending is happening. Is that an I don't

believe so. In fact, you know, it's we we actually have the the potential of of relatively inexpensively having access to this data through what Griffin was doing. I can't remember the name. Datify? Is that the name of the company?

They actually give you this if you pay them the right amount for whatever the package is. So it's not like this data is not something to obtain, but it seems like I'm just trying to raise the consciousness that it's important things to know. It's, you know, it's important on some level to know how many people went the Mandalier, but we don't know. It's it's there's a real tenuous connection between why those people are going to Bandolier and did they see an ad of ours or anything. But if we know how much people are spending when we're here, that's very concrete.

I would love to know, like, people who stay in our hotels, that data fi data could tell us how much do those people spend on average daily compared to a day visitor to to Vandalier who doesn't even stay at the hotel. You know, I mean, we we're and we're just we're just kind of not even trying to tune in on those things yet. And that's so, you know, that's my goal as one of the members here is to try to get us tuning in a little more on things that really matter. And in particular, this is kind of stuff is what matters to our local businesses generally. You know, the not just the hotels, but I'm talking about the shops, the restaurants, all of those people.

We can have we have a chance to demonstrate that we're doing good things for them. So with that, I I maybe we go to the next next report unless you want anyone wants to discuss it anymore. Do you do you have any what do you think of all this?

I I mean, you're right. We don't I know how much everybody's spending on my place. But I don't know what you know? And I know that people coming up here, it's a given that they're gonna stay at

the hotel. But we don't know

if they're stopping anywhere else, like a shop or whatever. So, yeah, interesting. And

and it'd be really cool to know, like, how many peoples are actually tourists who stay at your hotel versus people here for business and other purposes because that that helps us know something too. Would guess

And again, that

that's mostly the business people.

You know there, but I don't know And I don't know you would

wanna get out and put your date all together with the other hotels.

I think that would be interesting.

But it would neat if you did.

It would

be nice. Yes. I think it's interesting. Yes.

So a second agenda item I had suggested it goes to there's a goal Next slide, please. There's a goal right in the strategic plan that basically says, enrich our attractions in downtowns and celebrate the natural beauty of our community. And that strategic goal as it stated is right there. Same thing, businesses, really there is interest in developing some things, but but it it really needs to connect up with something whether it be events, whether it be new potential attractions that could be unique. That's what we saw in that business survey.

And so and and you do see a few things in the laundry list that that Ellen went over from the action plans that really relate to these. But I think the overall intent is we wanna really improve visitor experience and it it also in the process improves local residents experience too and and make our community a more attractive place. Next, please. So there are in the in the document, in the agenda, there are several recommended actions of things that could be done and I don't know why we wouldn't want these. I mean, we could have people like the chamber or the local business coalition and other people coming and talking to us about, okay, what what do they think?

What are their ideas? And what do they think we could be doing that would help things? I think there's a real need to look. As I looked at that that list of stuff on the strategic plan, to me there are capital projects that I can't, for the life of me, understand why they have anything to do with tourism. But they're taught and I don't know if they're using lodgers tax money.

But I think it's incumbent on us to give good advice to the council about are these really, you know, it's okay if they do the project but don't do it based on calling it a tourism project if it really has no potential for helping us in any way from a tourism standpoint. And so get understanding what those are and the things we can and should get behind as the LTAP versus things that for whatever reason have been thrown in our bucket but don't really seem to have a lot to do with with tourism and visitor and tourism activities. I think that's an important thing. It was actually maybe somebody mentioned it earlier. Think we ought to meet with the open space working group and find out because what I think you will find is there's a lot of interest and pride in the setting of Los Alamos.

But when the right hand and the left hand aren't coordinated, dumb things get done that really work against us. I don't know if you've driven down East Road and saw the absolutely terrible job that was done wiping out all of the undergrowth a lot so that the Canyon Rim Trail is now basically a walk along the highway instead of some something very special, which it had been. And that's just an example of the the the fire guys on the one hand wanting to accomplish some things, but doing it totally in a vacuum from the open space considerations that go with it or accordingly tourism kinds of potential things. So I think having that kind of of connection to and and hearing from people that really live and breathe the open space and breathe this live and breathe the setting about how to do it right so that it isn't screw things up in the eyes of the local community is important. I think there's a big potential for privately led events, activities and that we haven't touched for whatever reason with any support from the our tourism programs.

And I think we should be we should be evaluating whether those things are worthy of support and helping them if we can and helping new things to get to get going. And then I think also understanding what visitors make of this place is is another is another important thing. So next, please. So similarly, put together a motion that I would suggest we look at maybe at our next opportunity that really puts us into some kind of action regarding this this strategic plan goal. So so that's kind of my report.

Similarly to what we talked about before, some of the things if they're geared in the right and they get the right assignment and they're geared in the right way, this marketing contractor or destination management contractor could those things could work together and make sense. But it's not going to happen just by osmosis, I don't think. So we need to actually take a role in what and giving them ideas about what would be valued if they were if they were to make it part of what they do. So so I don't know if there's any discussion on this one either.

I do have a question. On your one, two, three, four, fifth point, encourage, recommend, and support the development of unique privately led events, activities, and attractions. What would that look like?

Well, a good example we've had the last couple years is OppenheimerFestival. OppenheimerFestival is a privately led thing. The the the county doesn't put money into it like it does into other events. And you have a business trying to operate that as a business. Well, I think we could definitely help by understanding it and helping to helping with in the normal course of what we're doing already with the marketing of things like that.

I'm actually involved in a committee looking at a what could become an annual trails festival. And, you know, in that it doesn't need to be a county run thing and it's actually bigger than actually our county borders. It's when you think of the trails in our area, the trails go all the way up into the Vise Caldera, out to Bandelier, and they're in a lot of different jurisdictions. And there's a real opportunity and it ties right back to that whole idea of making our natural setting and that we have and our natural assets something that we really get we do more with when it comes to to tourism and visitor promotion. So so that would be an example.

But I don't think that the that the that the the everything needs to be a government thing. I don't know. I might be overboard on that one. But I I'm I'm I'm just not that hot on. I'd rather see private as much private sector stuff as we can help support and help get going as possible. You know, that that that the the other thing, there was a I don't think it ever even came to Lodger Stacks board as I'm as far as I'm aware, there was a proposal for a private, very unique attraction being an immersive virtual reality experience in the community. And I

don't

know that it ever even got across the the the desk of the Lodgers Tax Board to be looking at what could that mean. You know, it's a you know, there are several examples out there of these kinds of things. And if we help them, they may produce really good results for us over time. Anything?

Yeah,

I've got to get going.

So you can click.

Yep. Mel's sitting here. Well, in case

you just wanna, like, copy the title. Sorry,

Mel. That's okay.

So looking we'll just look at the August report. And Okay. Can we gonna say we don't have a quorum.

Can we push the remainder of the reports to the next meeting?

Or we could

just say Or do a cons Okay.

Does that work for you? Yeah.

For us Okay.

Yeah. So we'll hop through this real quick. So for reference, we have Discover Los Alamos reports. I don't even know why it's happening. And, additionally, Sunny five zero five reports and the monthly reports. And then your Rogers tax revenue reports, those are all for reference, which would lead us to next meeting future agenda items. Connor, I'll let you read that, and then

The next meeting is scheduled for December 16. It'll be 12:00 right here, and I don't have any future agenda items that I know of. I guess we're ready to adjourn. 01:45.