BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING MINUTES
December 2014
Meeting Title
Destination Missoula & TBID
Board of Directors Meeting
Start Time
Stop Time
3:08 PM
5:07 PM
Date
Place
December 11, 2014
MSO Hub Conference Room
101E. Main St
Missoula, MT 59802
Phone: 406.532.325
DESTINATION MISSOULA BOARD MEMBERS
1 Jim Galipeau – President-Elect & Treasurer
3 Christine Johnson– Vice President
5 Bob Terrazas – Counsel
7 Linda McCarthy
9 Scott Richman
11 Ad Hoc – Erika McGowan
13
15
17
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
TBID BOARD MEMBERS
1 Lucy Weeder – TBID President
3 Matt Doucette
5
Staff
Barbara Neilan, Executive Director-EXCUSED
Mary Holmes, Destination Marketing Sales
Manager-EXCUSED
2
4
Cris Jensen – Past President
Brad Murphy – Vice President
Matt Doucette
Philip Mason
Kim Sawyer
Dan Carlino
Sage Grendahl, Director of Operations
MEMBERS ABSENT
1
3
5
7
9
Matt Ellis-EXCUSED (DM)
Anne Guest
Kate Leonberger-EXCUSED (DM & TBID)
Regina Rhodes-EXCUSED (DM & TBID)
2
4
6
8
10
OTHER GUESTS ATTENDING
 Mimi Gustafson, Holiday Inn Downtown
 Mark Spring, Quality Inn & Suites
 David Lawrence, Pangea River Rafting
 Charlene Campbell, Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre
 SuzAnne Miller, Dunrovin Ranch
Bryan Flaig
Barb Koostra
Justin Philbrick (DM)
TBID Approval of Minutes & Financials
There was a not a quorum so a vote could not be made. Please review the minutes and financials. The vote
will be tabled until next time.
Destination Missoula Approval of Minutes & Financials
Bob Terrazas moved to approve the board minutes. Philip Mason seconded and all voted in favor.
Jim Galipeau stated for the private account, everything is looking pretty good. We’ll be catching up on the
banner ads but won’t be getting $5,000 budgeted from banner ad sales. For the bed tax account, it is looking
about where we expect it to be. Income is where we expect too. Barb Neilan stated that there is money from
the audit that we will have to allocate before January. Barb wants to use some of that money for our outside
signage and marketing. Bob Terrazas moved to approve the financials. Matt Doucette seconded and all voted
in favor.
Cyber Tourism Presentation by Suzanne Miller – Dunrovin Ranch
Suzanne Miller mentioned that in 2011 she cooperated with Cornell University to put a web camera above an
Osprey nest. She put it up for scientific reasons. As it became available on the internet, the traffic kept
growing. In 2012, people didn’t want to her to shut the camera off. She created an internet focus group,
because folks wanted to watch her ranch through the camera. The main attraction was real life and real time;
the watchers got to watch the animals and relate to them, see them grow, etc. Suzanne created a new
business, www.daysatdunrovin.com. There are now three web cameras. She focusses on all wildlife.
Watchers feel personal connections to Suzanne and they consider her and the other watchers friends. It is a
two-tiered internet audience. The first tier is free and there is charge for the second tier. The site has a million
visitors. The second tier allows for communication. The pay site also has a book club with the author Judy
Blunt and she is an onsite host. There is also an online host that conveys the message through the telephone.
The cost of the second tier is $4/month or $40/year for social media, blogs, videos, chat rooms, contests,
games and projects. The viewers wanted edutainment. They offer ongoing stories for people online. These
people want to visit the area after experiencing the website. They are an older demographic. They are very
well educated. It’s mostly women watching. Many of them are retired. Sixty three percent watch it every day.
The webcams have increased folks wanting to visit Montana. They feel a connection to Dunrovin’s staff.
Suzanne Miller sees real potential for this and wants to encourage DM/TBID to figure out how to promote the
Missoula area further. Barb Neilan stated we need to look at the opportunities and how to partner. It is out-ofthe-box and could have huge possibilities.
Call Center Report
Erika McGowan stated November is one of our slowest months, but November is looking good. The Glacier
Country coops are looking really good and we have done some advertising. They are getting calls for the fall
drive campaign which was marketed in: Lewiston, Lethbridge, Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.
New Partner Center Site
Barb Neilan stated that we are very excited about the abilities of this site. It has modules so we can add onto it,
which could possibly help with some additional income. Kyle McGowan stated the site is responsive. The
functionality isn’t too much different from the old site, but this new site can offer more things. Partners can edit
their listings. Adding additional categories can enhance search functions. Sage Grendahl added with this new
program partners can have more photos. There is a notification system built into it; there will be pop ups
reminding partners of what is going on when they log in. Many items on the partner center site are available to
the public. Barb stated we will be sending something out to everyone about setting up new logins for this new
site. Erika McGowan stated that folks should add photos.
Review of Retreat Priorities & Partner Co-op Participation
Barb Neilan stated that Kate Leonberger wanted everyone to have the retreat goals in hand and to be ready for
January.
Front Desk Training & Showcase
Lucy Weeder stated that she and Kate Leonberger were chatting and that West Yellowstone had a good
training program for frontline desk staff. Superhost is customer service based, but it doesn’t do the best job
showcasing Missoula. They want to have a showcase where frontline staff can learn about the attractions, so
they can enlighten guests. The vendors would be able to come for free to the showcase. This is something
that we are looking to host in May. There were will be two training sessions, a morning and evening session.
The first year in West Yellowstone, it was a little slow, but by the third year it had really taken off. The
restaurants did tastes of their food. The Missoula Downtown Association is bringing an international customer
service representative in on May 7-8. The Montana Economic Development Cooperation is having this same
speaker as there key note. MDA is paying the speaker $3,000 to come to Missoula. Maybe there are some
ways we can partner on this. For participants, we can do member and non-member rate. If the businesses
join, what they paid for the people to attend could be applied to the dues.
Sales Reports
Mary Holmes pulled some reports for the last quarter. She sent out four leads for a total of 1,092 room nights.
Mary is trying to get a meeting planner in for a site visit. There were 379 rooms that were booked out of the
leads she sent out. Her lead conversion ratio is seven. She has gone to several trade shows, TEAMS and
IMEX, that have generated leads. She has nine open RFPs right now. Mary stated the grant revision group
needs to meet in January. Marina Woodson will facilitate that portion of it and Mary will help the groups with
help and advice. Mary will send out a Doodle poll for a meeting time.
Also for the first of the year, she’ll roll out another event with the hotel sales staff. We have opportunities for city
wide events and we need more properties to participate. These meetings will take place quarterly at various
restaurants that we may want to join Destination Missoula.
Barb Neilan stated the head of State Parks is coming in on the 18th and they will be doing a site visit. It is for a
national conference, and this year they would like to include Canada to attend the conference.
Barb further asked how to get our members more engaged. We are getting very limited responses to great
opportunities. Our fall marketing drive is reaching over 200,000 people. It is free for folks to participate and we
asked for travel deals. We got virtually no response. Scott Richman thinks we need to use Facebook better.
Our members are seeing what we are offering our consumers. Do we need to create a Facebook page for
partners? You can have a group within the whole page. Our Facebook page is currently Visit Missoula not
Destination Missoula. This happened before we rebranded. We want authentic users and we don’t want to buy
likes as some others do. Mimi Gustafson stated that maybe Facebook reminders would remind people they
have an email in their inbox that requires action. David Lawrence stated that sometimes the message could be
better articulated within the context of what we are trying to achieve. Cris Jensen suggested that maybe the
marketing committee look at this. Linda McCarthy stated we should look at doing a membership survey. Linda
also noted that with new staff, partners aren’t familiar with them. Also, restaurants and retailers are busy.
Calling them directly works best with this segment. Linda also thinks that if the emails came with more notice
for action items that would be nice. She said we could target the message to the various sectors.
Committee Reports
Marketing—No report was given.
Personnel—Bob Terrazas stated they met on November 4 and made progress on some evaluation strides.
They are working on job descriptions. Barb Neilan gave the committee a lot to do and they are looking at
organization structure issues. They will meet again on Thursday, December 18.
Partnership—No report was given.
Wayfinding—No report was given.
Legislatively—No report was given.
Special Task Force—No report was given.
Sports Commission—Brad Murphy stated there is a tip-off classic. It’s the first time in 10 years that the Adams
Center will host a high school event. There are five teams staying overnight. Brad stated the MADE Fair is this
weekend Sunday and encouraged the board to come. It’s a juried craft show with 7,000 to 8,000 people in
attendance. All of the items are made in Western Montana.
Art Committee—No report was given.
Hospitality Committee—This is a new committee with three co-chairs: Gary Hughes, Julie Gemar-Williams and
Christine Johnson. This replaces the Specials Task Force.
Old Business
None was reported.
New Business
Bob Terrazas commended Barb Neilan on her presentation at the Missoula Business Women’s Network.
Christine Johnson thanked Barb as well. Plus there was a nice article in the Missoulian about it as well.
Public Comments and Announcements
Philip Mason stated he went to a meeting of federal land to state control. This movement is gaining traction.
Utah is going after this. This trend could affect the future of public lands in Montana.
Adjourn
5:07 pm.