By Mary Alice Murphy

[Editor's Note: I did not record the event, so if I inadvertently left anyone's name off, I apologize.]

Silver City MainStreet Project Executive Director Charmeine Wait introduced New Mexico Department of Tourism Deputy Secretary Antoinette Vigil at meeting with community residents at the Murray Hotel Ballroom on Thursday, March 7, 2022.

Vigil said the group had been in Truth or Consequences the day before. She introduced Edward Graves, who is the publisher of New Mexico Magazine; Taylor Lawrence, who does marketing and communications; Nicole Baker, media and events; Lancing Adams, tourism development director; and Holly Kelley, business development.

The Deputy Secretary presented the fiscal year 2023 agency budget, which will have $19.4 million, a 15.9 percent increase from the current budget. She explained the budget will fund existing positions and market and promote all four seasons of the year in New Mexico. 

Additional non-recurring funds for the department will include $300,000 for the New Mexico Bowl; $350,000 for a branded partnership with New Mexico Special Olympics and $5 million of ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) for marketing and advertising, including local events promotion.

Vigil said the budget priorities for FY23 are the online marketplace, an event accelerator program and the reinstatement of the Sports Authority, which requested $100,000 in the Junior Bill, which was vetoed by the governor. 

[Editor's Note: The legislative special session may or may not have reinstated this funding in the junior bill. This editor did not check.]

Vigil talked about the Hospitality Training Reimbursement Program. Applications for training grants are open to all companies in the tourism and hospitality industry throughout New Mexico. She said the allocation of $2.5 million went fast, "but we still have $100,000 in the fund. The employer must pay at least $12.50 an hour. We are hoping we can find another way to keep the program going." The URL for Program Criteria is: www.ready.nm.gov/businesses/hospitality-training-reimbursement-program.

She said the department has also worked hard to build a tourism and hospitality job board, which allows employers to post jobs looking for employees. "We have seen an increase in applications."

The Tourism Department has also taken part in the ERAP (emergency rental assistance program) through its hotel participation program, with hotels being qualified as temporary housing locations, with rate parity (pre-pandemic), support to occupancy levels, and by offering operational revenue to aid in recovery. "We made sure that holds were not required and the number of rooms available for the program was at the hotel's discretion. A code of conduct was established for the displaced party and a county-by-county room rate schedule was established. The rooms could be directly paid for or invoiced. We have maybe 18 hotels throughout the state. The Department of Finance and Administration does an outstanding job of overseeing this program. I'm part of the contact for the DFA."

Adams, the tourism development director, talked about the key initiatives the department manages. 

"I just want to say that this is an incredible hotel venue," he began. "What are we doing? We have various grant and tech assistance programs."

They include New Mexico Clean and Beautiful, the Rural Pathway Program, Tourism Infrastructure, Hotel Digital Optimization, Group Event Venue Program, NMTD Visitor Center enhancements, regulatory relief efforts with the NM Public Regulations Commission and tourism event support programs. 

Adams said the department wants quality of life for tourists and residents, so it helps with infrastructure needs. "We are also working on enhancing the digital presence."

The New Mexico Clean and Beautiful program last year awarded $790,000 to 52 communities. This year's application process ended April 15. He said the departments secured an addition $72,000 for grants because the demand is incredible. The awardee is responsible for a 25 percent match, but it can be fulfilled through in-kind work.

The Rural Pathway Program is good for Grant County as a Continental Divide Trail Gateway Community. Grants can be up to $50,000, with the match being done with in-kind services. This program operates on a rolling application process.

Adams gave "a huge shout out to Priscilla (Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments executive director) on the infrastructure projects. She is awesome at working collaboratively with other councils of government.  She has helped get $6.8 million in funding designated this year. Local officials must have their projects on their ICIPs (infrastructure capital improvement plan)."

For the digital optimization program, he said that a lot of hotels are without a presence online. "We have great partners who help with costs," Adams said. 

The visitor center enhancements at the four statewide centers near the borders are receiving interactive kiosks, which help tourists develop their own itinerary. "We give them maps and we are leveraging technology."

On the regulatory side, legislation this year would have moved the jurisdiction from the PRC to the Department of Transportation, but it didn't pass. However, an amendment would reduce fees. He asked those interested to reach out to the department for more information. 

The tourism event support program was anticipated to launch on April 18 and will support events with an accelerator offering technical assistance to create a plan to execute the event. The grants are up to $5,000, which might pay for a website, for instance, he said. "We can also do direct sponsorship and get New Mexico True sponsorship." Adams said this last piece is a co-op program of marketing for events.

Adams also presented the next report on Research. He noted one of their priorities is to collect visitation data and visitor profiles. "Our research keeps you up to date on visitors. We also do ROI (return on investment) studies and marketing research, as well as analyses on the economic impact of visitors and visitor spending. In addition to statewide data, we can provide regional data including annual visitor volume, visitor profiles, hotels occupancy rates, revenue and weekly ADR (average daily rates), as well as workforce data."

He said research can also provide county-level data, including economic impact data, visitor spending, jobs supported by visitor spending, workforce reliance on tourism, local taxes from visitor spending and gross receipts tax by the month.

Part of the report included a recovery update on the state level, as well as on the Grant County level. On the state level, occupancy rates in 2022 are at 94 percent of 2019 levels, spending is up 75 percent at $300 million and deplanements through Albuquerque have increased by 168 percent, with 23,400 leisure and hospitality workers back on the job.

In Grant County, in 2020, tourism directly supported 567 jobs and visitor spending equaled $55.6 million. Since April 2020, southwest regional occupancy is up 142 percent, revenue up 73 percent, and accommodations and food services employment increased 29 percent with 188 jobs. "But everything is still a challenge," he said.

Vigil said: "We are asking for data through the New Mexico Department of Transportation, which is working on airport data."

Silver City Museum Director Bart Roselli said the museum has already met its annual budget eight months into the fiscal year. "Do you guess the growth will continue or will it plateau?"

Adams said there is a lot the department can do to keep the data up and to sustain visitation numbers.

Vigil said: "It's always a moving target, of course, but we have an app for you to use to access data we can share."

Lucero said she wanted to plant a seed. "We have Advanced Air providing essential air service to Grant County. The company got started providing charter flights in California. One of our discussions is how can we use them as a charter company. We've had discussions with them internally."

Vigil said they had not calibrated the Grant County airport data yet. She noted the research contact information as Research Director Victoria Gregg at Victoria.Gregg@state.nm.us for general research inquiries, marketing research and visitation data. Commerce analyst Tristan Collar can provide economic impact, business statistics and employment through his email Tristan.Collar@state.nm.us. 

Taylor Lawrence talked about how to work with the marketing division of the Tourism Department. "We have the cooperative marketing and advertising program, which offers co-branded and co-funded destination marketing plans to promote the community and attractions. She said the division offers emergency funding, but applications would close the following day. 

Vigil noted the match is now 1-to-1.

Lawrence said a program that has worked well, New Mexico True Certified leverages the power of New Mexico True to support small businesses and made-in-New-Mexico products.

Businesses also have the option to list their business, event or discount on NewMexico.org to help visitors browse and plan their trips. 

Lawrence also touted social media, where the department is @NewMexico on Twitter and Facebook and @NewMexicoTrue on Instagram. 

She showed some slides of how the marketing division is promoting its summer campaign. "It starts at the end of April. This year, we are promoting the Gila and Carlsbad Caverns with posters and videos at LAX (Los Angeles) and DIA (Denver)."

Contacts for the Marketing Division are as follows:

Questions about the co-op program? Contact Erin Ladd at erin.ladd@state.nm.us  Questions about New Mexico True Certified? Contact Brandy Velarde at brandy.velarde@state.nm.us  Questions about NewMexico.org? Contact Max Lehman at max.lehman@state.nm.us    Questions about social media? Contact Taylor Lawrence at taylor.lawrence@state.nm.us  

Nicole Barker presented the Communications report. "I manage earned media. "The supporting benefits of being in travel magazines and media outlets are SEO (search engine optimization). When high-quality publications provide editorial coverage, it boosts visibility and people are more likely to visit. It's often less expensive than paid advertising and it works better for social sharing, as it gets reshared. The way we measure earned media is by comparing it to what an equivalent ad buy would cost."

She noted that in social media as well as in lesser-known publications, New Mexico has "landed precious earned media." She showed samples from websites and from influencers. In earned media in 2021, New Mexico received 1.3 billion impressions for a value of $1.7 million at an ROI of $5.6 : $1.

Barker provided information on how to leverage earned media. Ways include subscribe to Tourism Talk newsletter, share newsworthy developments with the communications team, host media traveling on press trips, reshare media coverage on social media and keep the business updated on NewMexico.org.

The communications team includes:

Cody Johnson Communications Director Cody.Johnson2@state.nm.us 

Nicole Barker Media Relations Manager Nicole.Barker@state.nm.us 

Edward Graves, New Mexico Magazine chief executive officer, said the magazine is celebrating 100 years of publication this year. He noted that 50 percent of those who read New Mexico Magazine reside out of state. 

He presented the upcoming editorial calendar:

May: Green Chile Cheeseburgers/ Retirement June: Summer Road Trips July: State Parks Adventures August: Guide to Native Pottery September: Wine Getaways October: New Mexico DIY November: Historic Churches December: Holidays / True Heroes 

Becky O'Connor, owner of Casitas de Gila Guesthouses and Art Gallery in Gila, said she has been advertising in the magazine for 21 years. "We wouldn't do it, if it didn't bring visitors."

Graves said: "We are the oldest travel and leisure magazine in the U.S. New Mexico is also one of the top three areas for retirement. We are always looking for hidden gems related to travel and leisure. We launched a new website in September 2021, and we've seen growth on social media, too. We have gotten more advertorial content to help people get out the message about New Mexico. We also publish the New Mexico True Adventure Guide, with a distribution of 300,000, plus it is also digital. Our 100th anniversary kicks off in July 2022 through July 2023. We are looking at events and putting out a best of cookbook sweepstakes. "

He said the New Mexico True Hero Award 2022 nominations are open from April 1 through July 1. "Last year, one of our heroes was Steve Lindsay of Silver City, who switched operations to creating thousands of pieces of PPE (personal protective equipment)."

Vigil noted that copies of the latest New Mexico magazine and other publications were available on a table.