Fall Campaign Generates $1.3 Million from Visitors to Cheyenne

(Cheyenne, WY) – Visit Cheyenne announced the results of its fall campaign today showing at least 7,700 people visited Laramie County spending more than $1.3 million between September and February as a direct result of being exposed to Visit Cheyenne’s marketing messages.

The fall campaign focused on outdoor adventure, “Cheyenne Chic” or the unexpected side of Cheyenne and the Old West Holiday promotion. Visit Cheyenne invested $60,000 in digital ad placements through a company called Conversant which is able to track the devices where the ads were served and then track if those devices were seen in the Cheyenne area during and after the campaign. Post campaign, a Net Economic Impact report is created by Epsilon Data Management.

The $60,000 ad spend resulted in $1.3 million in spending by visitors as tracked through their phones and connected credit cards.  This represents a 22 to 1 return on investment of lodging tax dollars.

Visit Cheyenne Vice President and Director of Sales and Marketing Jim Walter says the campaign helped the local tourism economy, “In a time where other destinations were seeing contraction of their visitor market by greater than 50% because of the pandemic, Visit Cheyenne’s marketing efforts allowed Cheyenne to see a much smaller negative impact. We decided to run a fall specific campaign for the first time in a number of years, and to see a 22 to 1 return on the investment of lodging tax dollars is astounding.”

The campaign reached 564,000 individuals in the Denver, Omaha, Salt Lake City and Billings markets driving 7,700 visitors to Cheyenne. “An astounding 1.4% of the people who saw one of our ads, visited Cheyenne,” said Walter. “On top of that, while they were here, they each spent an average of $171 in our community. We have always said that tourism marketing investments return $8 for every $1 spent. This small fall campaign blew us away with the results.”

Visit Cheyenne’s CEO Domenic Bravo credits the results on a few factors, “Cheyenne managed to avoid the incredibly dangerous CoVid conditions that other larger, denser cities experienced. That allowed us to keep indoor dining, bars and some events going. Our efforts with the first ever Old West Holiday to provide a socially distant and responsible holiday celebration also went a long way to driving visitation to our community. The team at Visit Cheyenne worked incredibly hard to help our local businesses survive and to provide an experience to the visitor.”

The report highlights that visitors spent their money across all sectors of the economy, with retail establishments seeing 52% of the spending and restaurants 13%. The Denver MSA was by far the largest feeder market for revenue in the city.

Visit Cheyenne is currently in the process of launching its spring and summer 2021 campaigns and will be able to track the return on investment to the community. That report will be available in late 2021.

Visit Cheyenne is the official destination marketing organization for Cheyenne and Laramie County Wyoming and is the leader in developing, promoting, and protecting the Cheyenne area tourism industry.

 

###