In short
What is travel marketing in Colorado?
Travel marketing in Colorado is pre-season work. Tour and activity pages have to rank before the ski or summer window opens, because demand arrives and leaves inside a few months. Listings and paid can move quickly, but the ranking work is done in the off-season for the season after it.
Businesses worked with
400+
Running SEO and ad programs
6 years
Google Partner and Shopify Partner
Partner
You own every account
No lock-in
On the ground
Why Colorado marketing runs a season ahead
Where Colorado travel demand concentrates
-
Denver
year-round city and day-trip demand, the only steady market
-
Boulder
outdoor day trips with a strong local and student layer
-
Colorado Springs
Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods search demand
-
Aspen
premium winter market where resorts own broad terms
-
Vail and Breckenridge
I-70 corridor demand decided close to the date
-
Estes Park
Rocky Mountain National Park gateway, summer-weighted
-
Durango
a separate southwest market with rail and heritage demand
-
Glenwood Springs
year-round mix of springs, caves and rafting
Breakdown
Colorado by season
| Window | What is booking | Where the work goes |
|---|---|---|
| Dec to Mar | Ski lessons, backcountry, transfers, snowmobile | Paid at full pressure, conversion and review work |
| Apr to May | Mud season, very little leisure demand | Publish summer pages so they rank by June |
| Jun to Sep | Rafting, hiking, jeep tours, park trips | Paid on summer activities, listings maintained |
| Oct to Nov | Quiet, winter research begins | Publish winter pages, email past guests |
What we do
The program, run as one team.
Direct bookings come from a stack working together: pages that rank for your tours, listings inside Google's own booking surfaces, ads timed to the season, and a booking path that holds up on a phone.
01
SEO for tours and destinations
Rank for the trips you actually sell.
Technical fixes first, then a page for every tour and pickup area, then destination content that catches research traffic months before a booking. Google Business Profile and reviews handled alongside.
- Tour pages
- Area pages
- Trip schema
- GBP
02
Google Things to do
Tours inside Google's own booking surface.
Operator listings, pricing and availability connected so your tours appear where Google sends activity searches first. Most operators have never set this up, which is exactly the opportunity.
- Listings
- Pricing feed
- Reviews
03
Google Ads, timed to the season
Spend lands when bookings happen.
Budget concentrated in the booking window instead of spread flat across the year. Campaigns split by tour and by intent, with call and booking tracking from day one.
- Search
- Performance Max
- Call tracking
04
Meta Ads for long decisions
Stay present while they decide.
Trips get researched for weeks before anyone pays a deposit. Prospecting builds the audience, retargeting stays present through that window, and lead tracking follows the inquiry to where it lands.
- Prospecting
- Retargeting
- Lead forms
05
Email and repeat guests
One booking becomes a list.
Pre-trip sequences, post-trip review asks and next-season offers, built in Klaviyo or the ESP you already have. Repeat and referral bookings carry zero commission.
- Flows
- Review asks
- Next-season offers
06
Booking path and CRO
Where travel sites lose the sale.
Most travel sites lose the booking between interest and checkout. We test the path on a phone, where most of it happens, and fix what drops people.
- Mobile checkout
- Inquiry flow
- Speed
What is included
In the retainer, every month.
The scope does not change by state. What changes is the season map, the competition, and which tours are worth their own page.
- Google Business Profile and Things to do setup and upkeep
- Tour and destination pages written and published
- Technical and on-page fixes implemented, not just listed
- Review flow handed to your team
- Google Ads build and management
- Meta Ads creative and management
- Email flows for pre- and post-trip
- Booking and call attribution
- A season budget plan in writing
- OTA listing hygiene, not abandonment
- Trip schema written and validated
- Monthly report and strategy call
Process
Six months, honestly described.
Listings and paid can move within weeks. Tour and destination pages take three to six months, and they have to land before the booking window opens to be worth anything.
01
Audit and season map
Your site, your listings, your ad history, and when your state's booking windows actually open. Written findings, not a dashboard.
Week 1 to 2
02
Tracking and attribution
Booking, call and inquiry tracking live before spend is judged, so decisions run on real bookings rather than totals.
Month 1
03
Technical and listing fixes
Speed, indexing, schema, Business Profile and Things to do cleared first, so everything built afterwards can actually rank and convert.
Month 1
04
Tour and destination pages
A page per tour and pickup area, written against real search demand rather than a list of place names.
Month 2 onward
05
Paid push into the season
Google and Meta concentrated into the booking window, scaled on tracked bookings, cut back when the window closes.
Timed to your peak
06
Measure
Rankings, listing actions and direct bookings retested monthly against the baseline set in the audit.
Monthly
Questions
Travel marketing questions.
If yours is not here, send it. We answer these on the first call anyway.
What does travel marketing cost for a Colorado tour operator?
Retainers start at $1,000 a month and are scoped after the audit, based on the state of your site, the season ahead and the channels that fit. You approve the number before anything starts, and there is no lock-in contract.
Our revenue is five months of ski season. How does marketing work around that?
Ranking work happens in summer and fall so the pages are live before booking searches start. Paid concentrates inside the window and scales on tracked bookings. The off-season goes to the email list and next season's pages, never to dead spend.
Can we compete with the resorts for Vail or Aspen searches?
Not on broad resort terms. On the specific activity, the specific town and airport transfer searches, yes, and those convert far better because the buyer already knows what they want to do.
Should we market the summer side at all?
Yes, and increasingly so. Summer hiking, rafting and park demand is growing and is far less contested than ski terms. It also spreads revenue across the year instead of betting everything on snow.
What is Google Things to do and does it matter in Colorado?
It is the first surface Google shows for activity searches, and in a market where buyers decide fast from a hotel room it is often where the booking actually starts.
When should we start if we want to win next ski season?
Summer at the latest. Pages take three to six months to rank, listings and reviews take a season to build, and everything has to be in place before November searches begin.
How long before direct bookings move?
Listings and paid can move within weeks. Tour and area pages take three to six months, which is exactly why the calendar runs a season ahead.
Travel marketing by state
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Send us the site and the season you need to win.
We will come back with what is actually costing you direct bookings, in writing, before you spend anything. No deck and no sales rep.