Since its inception in 1984, the Advisory Group of Denver Inc. has served the destination travel industry, providing advisory and contract project services featuring core competencies in research, strategic planning, economic and market development, and tourism-infrastructure. More recently, the Group’s focus and unique expertise has been on tourism-dependent businesses and their public sector representatives in destination-resort communities, seeking to help establish and sustain a balance of lifestyle and economics for all stakeholders' greater good.
Core Competencies: Advisory Group’s unique skill set includes a research driven, evidence-based approach to tourism infrastructure assessment, strategic market planning and consulting/advisory services to tourism-dependent businesses, their public service representatives and destination marketing and management organizations that value research-based processes and structured decision making.
And, having inadvertently become something of a serial entrepreneur in the process, Garrison continues to use his own experience to help others with new business development and utilizes the Group’s platform to help incubate and launch new business development initiatives, both for himself and other interested parties.
Brief History: Founded in 1984 and owned/operated by industry veteran Ralf Garrison, the Group has morphed along with the industry it serves, founding several related businesses along the way, including The Mountain Travel Symposium, The Assembly, Destination Summit, Trans-Link Systems, Reservation Technologies, C.R.A.D.R, the Central Reservations Association (aka CRADR, then The Resort Reservation Association) in years gone by. Most recent was DestiMetrics, providers of destination travel market intelligence for dozens of destination resort communities, hundreds of lodging properties and several thousand users in both mountain and sun resort communities in United States and Canada.
In 2018, after completing the sale and transition of DestiMetrics to Inntopia, Garrison took a sabbatical and has since re-engaged, providing project-based consulting and advisory services with the re-launch of Advisory Group.
In 2021, mindful of the novel Covid-19 virus-turned-pandemic and its unparalleled disruption to the status quo, Garrison, and a network of colleagues, founded The Insights Collective, a pandemic economy think tank and resource center. The Collective team is powered by a group of industry veterans supported by the Advisory Group’s platform, systems and data driven approach to decision making.
In 2022, the Collective formalized itself as a Colorado non profit company and is working on a new toolset of qualitative " lifestyle" metrics to help elected officials create a balance, between the traditional, legacy based economic metrics, and the more recent shift toward residential quality of life. For more about the founding vision of The Insights Collective, visit their website at: www.theinsightscollective.com/.
Expressions of interest are invited and services are available on a one-time project specific basis, or longer term more permanent basis.
Larger, and multi-disciplinary project work is led by Garrison using the platform of his Advisory Group of Denver, its administrative and technical resources and a broader network of industry colleagues and associates that can be assembled to match client requirements, so “you only pay for what you need,” he concluded with a wink and a smile.
Fees are based on circumstance and value provided. Satisfaction is guaranteed.