Colorado develops an appetite for culinary tourism – Groups to tempt more visitors with top-notch dining

Visitors have a host of reasons for traveling to Colorado, from snowboarding to board meetings.

But, whether clad in hiking boots or business suits, the guests all have one thing in common – while they’re here, they have to eat.

By Janet Forgrieve, Rocky Mountain News

http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2619069,00.html

A couple of discussions this month will revolve around ways to let more people know what’s for dinner in Denver and around the state.

In a recent national survey used by the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, meeting planners ranked dining as more important than shopping or other activities when choosing a convention city.

"Maybe 20 percent shop, another 20 percent go to the mountains while they’re here, but 100 percent of them eat in restaurants," said Richard Scharf, acting bureau president and chief executive.

In the same study, done by Gerald Murphy & Associates, a California consulting firm, Denver placed 21st on a list of top 40 U.S. cities when it came to the perception of its dining scene, Scharf said.

"It’s a perception problem," he said. "The reality is, the restaurant situation in Denver has changed so rapidly."

Getting the word out about Denver’s growing dining diversity is one competitive edge the city can use, he said, as more and more U.S. cities try to attract the same meetings and conventions.

According to the Colorado Restaurant Association, visitors rank the opportunity to eat different and unusual cuisine while on vacation third after beautiful scenery and visiting someplace new, when choosing a vacation spot.

Talks by both groups come at a time when people around the country are exploring tasty new ways to bring in tourists – a specialty dubbed culinary tourism.

Basically, visitors interested in culinary tourism are looking for dining experiences they can’t find anywhere else, whether it’s a five-star experience or the best fish taco stand on the Oregon coast, said Erik Wolf, director of the year-old International Culinary Tourism Association.

"People would say there’s no brand, like New Orleans or San Francisco," said Cindy Weindling, executive vice president of the CRA. "At the same time, the perception of dining in Colorado, and Denver for a long time, was that it was kind of a culinary backwater, that it didn’t have the level of chefs that bigger cities had."

Today it’s at that level, she said, and the city and state have a growing offering of diverse cuisines, which gives visitors more choices but makes it tough to market with a few words.

At its two-day WestEx 2004 Expo next week, the association will focus on how to sell Colorado eating during a panel titled "Culinary Tourism: Putting Colorado on the Culinary Map."

The association has already launched one new marketing tool – a calendar of food-related events and festivals in the state, available on its Web site at http://www.coloradorestaurant.com.

One aim of organizing the state’s vast array of food-related festivals is to get visitors to stay a bit longer.

"I think the concept behind this idea is ‘Hey, if you’re coming to Colorado for two or three days, if something else is going on, maybe you’ll stay four or five days,’ " said Jackson Lamb, president of the CRA’s Mile High Chapter and a culinary instructor at the Art Institute of Colorado.

The convention and visitors bureau’s effort will be more focused on improving marketing to meeting and convention planners, Scharf said.

Midmonth, the bureau will gather a group of local restaurant publicists and marketers to brainstorm new ways to convey the diversity of Denver’s growing restaurant scene, he said.

Tentative plans already in the works include press trips to Denver organized around already popular events, including the Aspen Food & Wine Classic in June.

Recent national press attention, including a New York Times article last year and mentions in trade journals, help, Scharf said.

But more marketing efforts are needed, CVB spokesman Rich Grant said.

"If you look through the Denver literature, you see pictures of mountains, not pictures of dining," Grant said.