Whitefish to Host Community Town Hall on Tourism
City, business and marketing leaders on Oct. 16 will review tourism trends from this past summer and forecasts for the coming winter, as well as solicit feedback from community members
By Tristan Scott
The committee tasked with updating Whitefish’s sustainable tourism management plan will host a town-hall style meeting Wednesday night to review tourism trends, discuss forecasts for the coming winter and solicit feedback from community members.
The Whitefish Sustainable Tourism Management Plan (STMP) committee will convene the town hall on Wednesday, Oct. 16, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Whitefish City Hall.
Explore Whitefish Director Julie Mullins will be on hand to present visitor data from the summer, while a panel of resident experts, including Whitefish Mountain Resort President Nick Polumbus, will discuss winter trends.
Additional panel guests include Bob Ambrose, a resident and weather forecaster for OpenSnow.com; Rob Spence, vice president and general manager for Pursuit – Glacier Park Collection, the hospitality group that owns Grouse Mountain Lodge; and Edna White, marketing director for Averill Hospitality, which owns The Lodge at Whitefish Lake, The Firebrand Hotel, and The Pine Lodge.
The committee also hopes to solicit input from community members on the state of tourism in Whitefish. The evening will conclude with a question-and-answer session with the audience.
The role of tourism in Whitefish remains significant even as residents’ perception of it has shifted in recent years. Tourism in Whitefish has an estimated economic value of over $143 million, according to the strategic plan the Whitefish STMP committee released earlier this year. But the results of a separate survey released last fall reveal that the community views tourism more negatively than it did in the past.
The current plan, published in September 2020, acknowledged a growing “concern that too much visitation will diminish the quality of life that the community values and that visitors find so attractive” and characterizes its mission to “promote sustainable community-based tourism development that is beneficial to community members, employees, and visitors.”