Wednesday, May 16, 2012

No more bobble heads

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Two years ago in a fit of pique and frustration, the mayors and city councils of Ketchum and Sun Valley dropped their marketing contracts with the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber and Visitors Bureau.

In its place, the cities created the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance and instructed it to focus squarely on promoting travel to the Sun Valley area.

The cities have given the SVMA the gentle consideration that fledgling boards often receive as they get organized.

In that time, the SVMA presented quarterly updates to the cities about how it spent $1.7 million and received mostly nods of approval from officials.

The cities are beginning to put together their budgets for the 2013 year and SVMA funding. This year, the mayors and council members need to give the public and the SVMA their opinions and guidance.

The SVMA spends little compared to the gargantuan budgets of mountain resort behemoths like Vail and Aspen, Colo., and Whistler, B.C., and the cities should not consider spending any less than they do now.

However, the cities' officials need to be clear about what they expect, and put those expectations in writing in the contracts with the SVMA. They need to let the SVMA know what they're happy with and what needs improvement. Is the SVMA headed in the right direction with web-only marketing, its new website, visitor center, bike and Nordic festivals, and now 36 percent of its budget devoted to staffing?

Theories of marketing are like navels—everyone has one. But given that the cities created SVMA, elected officials have an obligation to behave less like bobble-heads and more like the performance auditors they set out to be two years ago.

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