International Markets Worth Big Money For Wyoming Tourism

CASPER — Christian Josso with United Airlines in Italy has been working to set up whiskey tours in the United States for all the “pure whiskey lovers” of Europe.

At first, Josso thought these tours should start in Kentucky or Tennessee, states that have long history with whiskey, as well as some of the largest players in the whiskey world.

But now he has an entirely different idea for the start of his tour for whiskey lovers after visiting Backwards Distilling in Casper. He liked what he heard there so much, he’s now thinking it should be the start of his whiskey tour instead.

“Let me say that after what I’ve seen here in Wyoming, I will immediately divert it,” he told Amber and Chad Pollack, co-owners of Backwards Distilling, asking them directly if they would be able to support such a tour.

Josso was one of 40 international travel and tour agents in Casper for the International Roundup, which is finally back in Wyoming after being derailed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Josso loved the daylong “fam” tour, short for familiarization, which included trips to Independence Rock State Historic Site, Fort Caspar Museum and the Nicolaysen Art Museum.

But he seemed the most taken with Backwards Distilling.

“I loved the fact that the grains are local, not imported from other countries or states,” Josso told Cowboy State Daily in a later interview. “And the fact that it is owned and operated by a family, and is not industrial. That’s much more appealing. They have a story to tell.”

Josso wasn’t the only one getting starry-eyed during the “fam” tour Saturday.

Bertrand Juilliard, North American product manager for French company Les Ateliers Du Voyage, placed his hand over his heart and told Visit Casper that the day’s trip to Independence Rock is something he will remember for the rest of his life.

Taken By The West

In the Fort Caspar Museum gift shop Saturday afternoon, a loud, British-accented voice rang out.

“Let’s go Chaps!” the male voice said. “We’re headed out West!”

He wasn’t the only one who seemed giddy with excitement during the Caspar Museum trip. A woman from the UK told Cowboy State Daily she loved seeing all the pioneer wagons and reading the pioneer stories.

“We don’t have this kind of thing in the UK,” she said. “So, it’s very interesting to us.”

That kind of enthusiasm for what Wyoming has to offer was music to Wyoming Office of Tourism Director Diane Shober’s ears throughout the multi-day International Roundup.

International tourism makes up a huge portion of Wyoming’s tourism sector, and it’s something that has not yet returned to its pre-pandemic levels.

Dude ranches in the state say that their clientele is a 50-50 mix of international and domestic travelers, Shober told Cowboy State Daily on the bus ride to Backwards Distilling. That makes events like the Roundup, which is only in Wyoming every four years, vital to recovering the state’s overall tourism sector and, hopefully, growing it further.

Destination marketing company RMI, which is headquartered in Cheyenne, tracks international tourism statistics for Wyoming Office of Tourism and is an integral part of the state’s efforts to lasso more international tourism, with operations in London, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Copenhagen and Sydney.

“Traditionally, I would say Wyoming’s international travel is about 10% of the whole,” RMI CEO Matthias Jung told Cowboy State Daily. “Across the seven markets that we’re in, we’re about 50% recovered from pre-pandemic highs.”

In a good year, internationals would book 400,000 Wyoming rooms for overnight stays, Jung said. That’s pre-pandemic.

“Right now, we’re about 43% of what we were, and that’s about $99 million dollars in the state of Wyoming,” Jung said. “If we were at full pre-pandemic numbers, it would be $229 million and something.”

And that’s just the spend for overnight stays, Jung added. It’s not including food at restaurants, gas for driving around, gifts and souvenirs to take home or anything else that tourists spend money on.

“So, think about how the state is funded,” Jung said. “Those tourists come in, spend that money, and leave. So, they’re not necessarily impacting the local — they’re injecting money that otherwise wouldn’t be here. So, this marketing is crucial for a state like Wyoming.”

Jung has been told the International Roundup is leading the industry with its unique format, which acts as a vetted matchmaking service for tourism operators and suppliers.

“We’re competing against bigger budgets, against bigger destinations that are more popular, like New York City,” Jung said. “This is a model that works, and it’s kind of how international visitors come over (to Wyoming.)”

Speed-Date The World

While the “fam” tour is the most popular part of the International Roundup, the most vital part of the event took place inside an enclosed space at the Ramkota Hotel in Casper on Sunday and Monday, and would probably have looked like some kind of very odd speed-dating event.

A cattle bell rang every five minutes to signal that it was time for each supplier to switch to a new table, and a new tourism agent, for their next pitch.

Suppliers mainly came from the Great American West partnership, which includes Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and South and North Dakota. A few representatives from Minnesota and Colorado were also there.

Each supplier is vetted ahead of time, as are the travel agents, to ensure that everyone in the room is serious about buying and selling.

Many suppliers have been thinking about and honing their pitches for the event for months, thinking about how best to sell what they have to offer European and Australian tourists.

Take Visit Carbon County, for example.

Casper has more breweries, CEO Leslie Jefferson told Cowboy State Daily. And Snake River Brewing in Jackson offers the most beers at 125.

“But we have the only brewery that’s directly attached to a hot springs resort,” she said. “That makes us unique.”

Another attraction that’s unique is Brush Creek Ranch, a luxury stay that has Wyoming’s only Grade A goat dairy, as well as a wine cellar that’s among the 10 largest in the world with 30,000 bottles.

“There’s a greenhouse on site where they grow their own produce,” Jefferson added.

And the working ranch also breeds its own wagyu cattle.

Activities at the ranch range from skiing in the winter to fishing and horseback riding in the summer. And there’s a bit of goat yoga, mixology, whiskey tasting and cheesemaking classes thrown in as well.

All of which drew exclamations of, “Oh cool!” when she was visiting with Tamara V. Tommers with TRUE America, a German-based travel agency that curates custom tours for Europeans to explore “their own personal American Dream.”

Tommers took lots of notes on her Carbon County entry in the International Roundup pitch book, which contained not only contact information for every participant in the Roundup, but generous space to write notes under each and every contact.

Jung told Cowboy State Daily that RMI gets lots of compliments on the format of the book, which has been refined over the years to become one of the best in the industry.

Together We Stand

Wyoming is not a destination that’s top of mind for international tourists, Peter Vroom, with Westbound Travel in the Netherlands told Cowboy State Daily.

“A lot of our customers may only take one trip to America in their lifetime,” he said.

Those travelers are more likely to pick something on either the East or West Coast, like New York, California, or Florida — places that have big enough tourism budgets to market direct to international consumers.

For states like Wyoming with much smaller tourism budgets, banding together in a cooperative to try to draw tourists further into the state is something Vroom said is essential. One state on the interior of the country doesn’t have enough interest otherwise.

“A lot of our customers will come to America once in a lifetime,” he said. “Usually, it will be the coast. But now we have some who want to go back, and they’re looking for something new.”

Vroom thinks he sees that something new in driving tours for Dutch tourists, to places like Independence Rock or Devils Tower, which are not only unique, but have interesting stories around them.

“The scenery here is very beautiful,” Vroom said. “All these mountains. There’s so much to explore — and I like all the stories about the West.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.