Get to Know Your DMO

The Albany County Tourism Board (ACTB), named Visit Laramie after the largest community in the area, is the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) for the communities of Albany County, Wyoming, and also operates the Laramie Area Visitor Center and the Centennial Visitor Center. The DMO promotes the region as a travel destination by providing information to potential visitors, and by marketing with a focus on lodging sales, tourism destination development, events and activities, and business services. Visit Laramie uses many media platforms and channels to build brand awareness of the Laramie area and its many offerings to visitors. At the end of the day, our Mission is to create sustainable economic growth through tourism that helps our businesses and communities thrive together.

Visit Laramie's marketing efforts are funded by the county-wide lodging tax. This tax is not paid by residents of Albany County, as it only applies to paid overnight accommodations, typically paid for by visitors to the area. Learn more about the impacts and benefits of the travel and tourism industry in Albany County below.

In 2023:

• Albany County welcomed 1,000,000 visitors, of which approximately 729,400 spent the night for an average length of stay of 2.6 nights.

• Direct travel spending in Albany County was $205.7 million.

• Albany County generated $11.9 million in travel-generated tax revenue, of which $5 million in sales tax stayed local to Albany County.

• Travel spending supported 1,710 jobs.

• If not for the taxes generated by the travel industry, the average household in Albany County would have paid $672 more in taxes for existing government services.

• In fiscal year 2024 (July 2023 - June 2024), the Albany County Tourism Board generated $1,406,354 in lodging tax revenue, the most in its history.

• In fiscal year 2024, the Albany County Tourism Board's budget was spent 63% on marketing, 25% on wages and benefits, and 12% on operating and overhead expenses.

We are still putting the finishing touches on the FY24 Annual Report. To browse prior years including FY23, please click below.

Frequently Asked Questions

Overview

Destination marketing invites visitors from outside Albany County to the Laramie Area who in turn help to support the local economy. Many of these visitors support our communities in a variety of ways, from staying in a hotel and trying a new activity to attending an event followed by a trip to local shops and restaurants. All of these visitors help to support our local businesses and jobs, and in turn, generate tax revenues for Albany County that support our way of life.

In 2023, the Visit Laramie team created and continues to execute on a strategic marketing plan to inspire and educate travelers who are interested in visiting the Laramie Area. Though we are funded by a lodging tax, our goal is always to use those funds to help support a strong local economy for Albany County that is supported by travel and tourism. With a mix of tactics and a talented and committed team, we were able to reach travelers at each step of their journey to ensure continued success for Albany County’s tourism economy.

Media Tactics

The Visit Laramie team executed a range of strategic marketing tactics throughout the year to reach our target customers. This included a small paid media campaign with most campaigns being managed internally. Our mixed media tactics included but were not limited to things like digital, print, out-of-home, TV, radio, hosting travel writers, co-ops with the Wyoming Office of Tourism, and more. Whenever possible, local partners and vendors were chosen to support these efforts.

Destination Management

In 2023, the Albany County Tourism Board continued to improve and implement our innovative approach to crowd dispersion and promoting responsible recreation. This work builds on our Cowboy Character campaign and expands the marketing reach to implement real-life strategies to incentivize crowd dispersion in the National Forest using a mobile trails pass. This all centered around the 2021 Cowboy Character campaign, blending Leave No Trace Ethics and the Cowboy Code of the West. In 2022, a winter version of the Cowboy Code was launched with messaging based around winter safety and those efforts have continued to grow in 2023. This campaign alongside the Cowboy Character Challenge has been able to reach millions of people, and our goal is to continue to develop these efforts while promoting but protecting outdoor recreation amenities in Albany County.

Destination Development

Building on last year's momentum, the Albany County Tourism Board continues to benefit from Destination Development Funding provided by the Wyoming Office of Tourism. This money is a benefit that originates from the statewide lodging tax that was introduced in 2020, and each lodging tax board in Wyoming is eligible for a certain amount based on criteria established by the state. Albany County applied for the full $300,000 that we were allotted with a long list of tourism infrastructure-related projects. In 2023 and 2024, these new projects include:

• The new Outlaw Trail Dinner & Show event
• Support for murals at Vedauwoo and the Snowy Range in partnership with USFS and Laramie Public Art Coalition
• Staffing the Centennial Visitor Center for the summer, fall, and winter seasons through partnerships with USFS, Common Outdoor Ground, and the University of Wyoming
• Purchasing credit card data for improved analysis of visitor spending behavior and economic impacts to Albany County
• Updating our website to include new web accessibility and inclusivity standards
• Adding community wayfinding signage throughout the City of Laramie for improved navigation, increased awareness of attractions, and beautifying our corridors and interstate exits

Future projects include working towards improved transit service for visitors to Albany County, support for new and existing winter events, and improving support for historic tours and signage for self-guided tours throughout Albany County.

Market Segments

Each year, the Visit Laramie team reviews the prior year's visitor traffic to determine where to run campaigns for the year ahead. In 2023, we continued to focus on some of our key geographic markets including the Midwest and other areas of the Rocky Mountain West. Specifically, our team continued to focus on growth opportunities created by shifts in the travel market during the post-pandemic era of travel. This included targeted marketing to Chicago, Kansas City, and the Lincoln and Omaha areas. Many of these markets continue to do very well even a few years after the pandemic due to increased marketing, and of these areas, Chicago has seen the strongest growth and ROI from our marketing investment. We continue to run marketing campaigns in Colorado, using a targeted approach to focus on attracting the ideal traveler.

New for 2023, our team decided to lean into the Salt Lake City market. These marketing campaigns resulted in a nearly 3x increase in visitors from the SLC area, bolstering our tourism economy. Additionally, we continued to pursue the Dallas Fort Worth area in Texas for a second year. Visitation from this market nearly doubled, again supporting the strong tourism economy in Albany County.

Partnership Programs

University of Wyoming ORTM Internship

New for 2023, Visit Laramie partnered with UW's Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Management program (ORTM) to create a new internship. This opportunity will afford one student each summer to work in the Centennial Visitor Center with other local and regional partners, offering them hands-on experience in the industry. Things went so well last year that we have hired another intern for summer 2024, and our goal with this program is to maintain a strong partnership with UW's tourism degree program and to support efforts to develop Wyoming's frontline hospitality workforce.

Certified Destination Expert Program (CDX)

New last year, Visit Laramie launched the Certified Destination Expert Program in partnership with UW’s Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Management program (ORTM) after working on the development of the program in 2022. This program, dubbed CDX for short, was designed for front-line staff members who interact with visitors across Albany County to help them build and share their knowledge about everything there is to offer in the area. The course includes information on hospitality and customer service, outdoor recreation, sports and education, art and cultural attractions, history and Western life, special events, food and beverage options, and lodging.

The course is online, self-paced, and offers access to resources that help participants learn best practices for the ultimate visitor experience. To learn more about the program and how you or your business can enroll, view the Certified Destination Expert program here.

Other Facts, Figures, Awards, & Accolades

• In 2023, we distributed over 60,000 Visitors' Guides and brochures, most of which are printed locally.

• In July 2021, Visit Laramie moved the Visitor Center to a new location at 800 South 3rd Street. In our third full year in the new space, foot traffic remained steady while gift shop sales increased. We were able to add the gift shop space through our partnership with the Laramie Chamber Business Alliance and add a mural on the outside through a partnership with Laramie Public Art Coalition. We believe that the more visitors we can reach through the Visitor Center, the more people who we can talk to about where to go, what to see and do, and how to spend more time and money in Albany County.

• In late FY23, we added a second gift shop location in the Centennial Visitor Center. Our long-term vision is to use gift shop sales and proceeds to create a non-profit foundation fund that gives more back to Albany County programs and initiatives.

• In 2023, visitlaramie.org received 1,362,866 pageviews or an average of over 113,000 per month.

• In 2023, we partnered with Laramie Public Art Coalition and the US Forest Service to install 2 new murals inside vault toilet bathrooms highlighting Responsible Recreation. In 2024, we have added 2 more, and all have been completed by local artists from Albany County.

• In 2023, visitlaramie.org referred nearly 15,000 website visitors directly to the booking page on local hotel websites.

• In 2023, @visitlaramie reached over 2 million users using social media.

• In 2023, our team sent over 2.1 million marketing emails with an average open rate of 48.5% and an average click-through rate of 2.4%. This is well above the industry average and means that over 1 million people open emails from Visit Laramie every year to learn more about planning a trip to visit the Laramie Area.

The Albany County Tourism Board provides grant support for local nonprofits to put toward marketing events that draw outside visitation to Albany County. In the Fiscal Year 2023-2024, ACTB sponsored approximately 14 events totaling over $125,000 in grant requests awarded.

To learn more about this process or to submit your own request, please visit our grant request page.

The Albany County Tourism Board runs on a Fiscal Year calendar starting July 1st and ending June 30th of the following year. Click below to view and download the report below for our most recent fiscal year.

Still looking for more information? To learn more about our board & team, mission, vision, values, and more, click the button below to learn more about us.