1. livsothebysrealty.com page 7 303.893.3200livsothebysrealty.com page 6 303.893.3200
first met Al White in 2013 at a
Colorado Association of Ski Towns
(CAST) meeting at the Colorado
Municipal League in Denver. Mayors
from the state’s most notable ski towns
were gathered to discuss current affairs
that affected their respected slopes, and
buzzed around one man in particular,
making me wonder, who is that? Today I am
sitting across from him at his desk in his
downtown office, about to have lunch, and
this time his attention is mine, and there is
not a mayor in sight.
If images of carving through powder
among vast expanses of Rocky Mountain
peaks or hiking through alpine meadows
dotted with wildflowers are the pools of
ink from which your first memories of the
colorful state were drawn; White is the man
who holds the pen to those powerful images.
Once ski-shop owner, come Colorado
state Senator, White is director of the
Colorado Tourism Office (CTO). He has
created impressions that have stuck with
us so vividly that Colorado is now not only
a bucket list place to visit, but the hottest
place in the country to live. White is a man
with a plan, a marketing plan, which has been
successfully employed for nearly a decade.
The CTO’s efforts to draw people to
Colorado are working. I ask White how he’s
captured these original visitors, and what’s
their motivation behind coming to stay
permanently? “Some people would suggest
we’re just fortunate and riding the coattails
of an improving economy,” said White. “I’d
say that’s not the case.”
For the past three years, the CTO has
implemented the Come to Life campaign to
promote Colorado tourism, which despite
having a lengthy shelf life for today’s rapid-
fire marketing strategy, is working. “The
whole Come to Life concept is aimed at
getting people to realize their day-to-day
world is O.K. Its pays the bills, but until they
come to Colorado and realize the potential
of what their life can be, they’re just kind of
existing. When you come to Colorado, you
come to life.”
White came to life from Illinois over
40 years ago when he was just eighteen
years old. “I got on a train with my great
aunt and uncle in St. Louis for a spring
break vacation in Colorado. I had never
skied before. We over-nighted on the train,
arriving at Union Station in the morning.
We continued through the Moffat tunnel
on the Yampa Valley Mail train and by the
time we got to Winter Park, there was
five feet of snow on the ground. I looked
out at Byers Peak on one side, and the
Continental Divide on the other. The color
blue was a shade I’d never seen before.
It reached me emotionally. It is that
emotional feeling that I try to put forward
in the Come to Life campaign.”
After falling in love with Colorado,
White and his wife moved to Winter Park
and worked in the ski business for 25
years; however they were not strangers
to challenging times. “By 2000 we were
down to one store, trying to cherry pick
our business that was the most profitable,
which happened to be the shop at the base
of the Mary Jane Mountain. The ski area
came in and said they were going to take
over our space, and we lost the business
value of what we created. I felt; there’s got
to be a law about something like this.”
Sentiment, not a typical reason for a
launch into politics, is what jumpstarted
White’s.
In 2000, White served as a Republican
member of the Colorado House of
Representatives for eight years before
being elected to the Colorado Senate in
2008. In 2010, then governor-elect John
Hickenlooper crossed party lines to appoint
White to the helm of the Colorado Tourism
Office, a challenging position due to the
organization’s aggravated past.
The CTO did not always brandish
the peppy red, white, blue and yellow
flag with the same vigor it does today.
At the organization’s infancy, legislators
imposed a sunset review on the CTO,
giving the organization five years of
funding, before deciding if they would
reauthorize more. Two sunset reviews
later, it was 1992, the same year the
TABOR law passed, stating that any tax
that was imposed on citizens had to be
approved by citizens. In 1993, the citizens
of Colorado voted against the tax required
to continue funding, and the CTO went
dark. With that vote, “Colorado lost one
third of the national overnight market
share,” said White.
I
OUT to
LUNCH
with
Colorado’s Biggest
Tourism Advocate
By BRITTANNY HAVARD
“WHEN YOU COME TO
COLORADO,
YOU COME TO LIFE.”
~Al White
In 2000, the CTO was reinstated, with an annual budget of
$5 million, a number that will increase to $19 million next year,
with a goal to specifically target the international markets whose
citizens typically stay longer and spend more. Even with the budget
increase, funds are still minimal compared to states like Florida
and California, both of which expend upwards of $100 million in
marketing annually.
Colorado’s marketing platform keeps up with its coastal
counterparts, despite its significantly lower budget, because
“the heart of our campaign is that Colorado will reach you at an
emotional level. What we do doesn’t work in California. It doesn’t
work in Florida. It is a fact of life that once people visit, they
want to come back,” said White. And he has proof. Over his desk,
White hands me a copy of Bon Appétit Magazine, showing off the
diverse outlets in which the Come to Life campaign is featured and
explains how 82% of CEO’s that are based in Colorado originally
came on vacation.
I want to know, however, with all the people moving to
Colorado, how White will continue to market and preserve the
image of Colorado that everybody fell in love with in the first place?
“When I first came to legislature in 2000, some ideas we were
fighting were urban sprawl and unregulated growth. Me trying to
tell the story of tourism fell on deaf ears,” said White. “To preserve
the place we fell in love with in the first place, we have to keep
ourselves sustainable, which we’re doing with resources like the
Bureau of Land Management and federal and state land and parks.
As desirable as it is now, I think people will continue to come to
Colorado. “
Inspiring people for a living is hard work, but with a canvas like
the state of Colorado, and the diligent and dedicated marketing
strategy that continues to foster growth in the state, White has
ensured that even if not everyone comes to stay, everyone at least
comes to visit.
Brittanny Havard is Editor of LIV
Magazine and Public Relations Manager
at LIV Sotheby’s International Realty.
Have a local innovator in mind
for ‘Out To Lunch?’ Email
brittanny.havard@sothebysrealty.com.
“THE HEART OF OUR CAMPAIGN IS THAT COLORADO WILL REACH
YOU AT AN EMOTIONAL LEVEL. WHAT WE DO DOESN’T WORK IN
CALIFORNIA. IT DOESN’T WORK IN FLORIDA. IT IS A FACT OF LIFE
THAT ONCE PEOPLE VISIT, THEY WANT TO COME BACK.”
-Al White