$410k air-credit pot is basically spent, with $1.23M in lodging tied to it

The headline number in the latest Jackson Hole Resort Reservations (JHRR) air-credit update is that a $410,000 incentive pool is essentially gone: $401,200 has been used to date to fund rebates of up to $500 per person for packaged air, lodging and activities, according to the JHTTB JHRR Air Credit Reporting Data Metrics. The fund is a joint contribution from the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board (JHTTB), Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) and Grand Targhee.

On the sales side, JHRR reports $2,197,354 in total lodging sales for the period, with $1,230,570 of that tied to bookings using the air credit. Usage is high: 364 of 584 total reservations used the air credit (about 62 percent), and 43 percent of air-credit bookings came from JAC direct-flight markets. Air-credit trips are slightly longer (5.4 nights vs. 5.1 nights overall), and the average package price with the incentive is reported at about $5,710.

What is missing, and what I will keep asking for any public-facing incentive program, is a clean performance test. The document reports web traffic up 132 percent year over year and gives booking totals, but it does not show how many of these bookings would have happened anyway, how much incremental lodging tax or sales tax came back to local governments, or what the board will do differently if the $410,000 turns into a repeat annual spend. If we are going to subsidize winter visitation at this scale, the community deserves a before-and-after yardstick, not just activity metrics.