Meetings Marketing for the Resort Destination of Park City, Utah

By Kerrie Yancey & Colette DuChanois

Visit Park City (VPC) has been working with Digital Edge for nine of the 12 years that our B2B agency has been creating meetings marketing solutions for the travel & tourism industry. Over the years, we’ve helped drive group business leads and bookings in the resort destination of Park City, Utah. Here’s a look at VPC’s most recent successes that Digital Edge has helped with.

Group Sales Rising

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Increase in leads Year over year

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Increase in booked business year over year

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Increase in booked room nights year over year

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Increase in revenue

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of leads and booked business in 2022 for non-peak seasons

Just one observation that I'm seeing from leads is we're getting a lot of them. They're coming in very steady. And a lot of them are for literally the next quarter — meetings in spring of this year. I think I had three or four yesterday.

Carolyn Creek-McCallister

Senior National Sales Manager | West/Southwest Region, Visit Park City

The Challenge

VPC was seeking a meetings-focused agency to complement its leisure agency’s efforts with on-brand marketing and a campaign targeting the right planners for the mountain resort town’s product.

The Solution

Park City is a marketing agency’s dream. Known by many as “America’s Favorite Mountain Town,” the destination has a welcoming atmosphere, beautiful Wasatch mountain range, convenient location (especially compared to other mountain towns), a mix of recognizable hotel and resort brands, award-winning dining, an Olympic legacy, and a team of warm and friendly destination experts.

When Digital Edge came along, the mountains and the magic were there, but meetings interest needed to stack up. We partnered with VPC to drive the sales team’s activities and create awareness outside of the state for the destination’s top-tier conference facilities and off-site meeting space focused on its shoulder season.

A lot has been done over our nearly-a-decade-long partnership. For our beloved legacy client, we continue to effectively target specific meeting segments during Park City’s need times; optimize and evolve creative and content; strategize to get more ROI from trade show investments; utilize our understanding of multiple media platforms to reach planners in the different buying cycles; and … we listen.

"There was no shortage of ways to describe a meeting destination like Park City. From incentive program messaging that exuded a luxurious and exclusive appeal to an outdoor lover's paradise ideal for meeting and retreating to presenting one of America's most accommodating and accessible mountain towns as a premier destination leading the way in sustainability—the content was boundless and it was exciting to develop multiple messaging concepts to reflect how incredible Park City is for planning meetings and events."

MELANIE CORNWELL | DIGITAL EDGE

CONTENT WRITER TURNED PROJECT COORDINATOR

The Main Campaigns

Main Meetings

ON THE RIGHT TRAIL

Park City’s overall meetings campaign engages organizations that plan smaller meetings, with focused market segments including corporate/incentive, corporate/medical and associations.

August 2020—June 2023 Media Metrics:

10.7M +Total Impressions
56K Total Clicks
0.86% Average CTR

Incentive-Focused

REDEFINING INCENTIVE PROGRAMS

A campaign that creates interest from planners of domestic incentive groups and showcases Park City’s five-star resorts, luxury and wellness offerings, various activities and convenient location.

February 2021–June 2023 Media Metrics:

2.7M+ Total Impressions
14K+ Total Clicks
0.7% Average CTR

Spring-Focused

EXPERIENTIAL SPRING MEETINGS START HERE

A campaign highlighting the benefits of meeting in Park City during the springtime shoulder season (mid-April through mid-June), targeting planners looking for a more affordable time to meet in the destination.

August 2022–June 2023 Media Metrics:

1.1M+ Total Impressions
11K+ Total Clicks
1.10% Average CTR

Sustainability-Focused

AMBITIOUS GOALS. SUSTAINABLE MEETING SOLUTIONS.

A sustainability campaign highlighting the importance of green meetings with a focus on venues and hotels with green initiatives, sustainable efforts and options, outdoors and sustainability activities, eco-friendly transportation, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) opportunities.

October 2022–June 2023 Media Metrics:

500K Total Impressions
5K+ Total Clicks
1.32% Average CTR

“We updated their email template last year to have the ‘On the Right Trail’ look. So that was a lot different. That was a cool creative with the trail graphics and all, which went across all email pages, banners, everything.”

MATT LEAMON

INTERACTIVE MEDIA MANAGER

The Results

VPC’s partnership with Digital Edge to integrate resort-focused destination meetings marketing with a highly-targeted multitouch campaign strategy has driven measurable and trackable group business leads and interest in Park City.

A lot has been done over the last almost 10 years, but overall, Digital Edge has helped VPC:

Raised awareness for Park City’s remarkable shoulder season offerings to build demand when it was needed most and level out occupancy and ADR
Inspired interest through new and existing destination stories, told through a mix of digital content
Provided strategic solutions in alignment with Park City’s sales team’s needs and maximized the ROI of sales activities – through trade shows, third parties, client events, FAMs and sponsorships
Focus on sharing their sustainability messaging to appeal to the right types of groups
Helped grow group sales leads and business

“Leads have really picked up — which is great for our spring campaign.”

TONYA SWEETEN

VICE PRESIDENT OF GROUP SALES, VISIT PARK CITY

The Solution

Recently, VPC’s group sales saw in 2022 (compared to 2021)…

52% Increase in Leads
28% Increase in Total Booked Business
15% Increase in Total Booked Room Nights
14% increase in Total Revenue

In addition, in 2022, 83% of VPC’s leads and booked business were for its non-peak periods. Summer and fall were the most booked seasons, while spring leads and booked business increased significantly. Spring had the largest jump in lead percentage year over year at 31%. And corporate business increased at the same time association leads and booked business rose year over year.

“The leads and book business for non-peak periods — spring had the largest lead growth, corporate leads are up, and that's specifically why we have these different campaigns between incentive, even, of course, the spring focus, too, that's a non-peak period. Their whole campaign is to book outside of peak — which is winter.”

KIM RITTEN

VP OF CLIENT STRATEGY | DIGITAL EDGE

By-the-Numbers Metrics

Meetings Website New Users

23.28% ↑ compared to previous 3-year period

Emails

33% Average Open Rate & 6.77% Average Click Rate (above industry averages)

Social Distribution

27M+ Total Impressions, 38K Total Clicks & 1.17% Average CTR (above industry average)

Contact Digital Edge directly to learn how our B2B agency for the travel & tourism industry can work with your resort destination to provide targeted meetings marketing to reach the right audience with the right message and drive results.