Ralf’s interests, core competencies and unique skills are founded on a solid academic background, deep experience over several decades in destination resort management, several businesses he founded/operated, and a broad network of colleagues and associates with whom he collaborates.
Garrison’s early career began with a decade in destination resort management and operations - first in Crested Butte and later Telluride. In 1984, Garrison founded Advisory Group of Denver—a strategic marketing services company—as a platform for his services and incubator of several of his own tourism-travel business, most notably The Mountain Travel Symposium series and, more recently, DestiMetrics – a destination travel research company, sold to North Star/Inntopia several years ago.
Now, as the Covid Pandemic morphs into endemic and a new set of economic and geopolitical threats emerge, Garrison is focused on helping tourism-dependent businesses and their public-sector representatives better quantify and understand this emerging new reality and plan their road to recovery. “I’m most interested in contributing at the table where planning and strategic decision making is being conducted, and a credible, objective, evidence-based third-party perspective can be helpful,” he concluded.
Specific experience and unique skills include:
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Research Analytics: Ralf’s experiences and knowledge of modern-day research and analytic tools — derived from his decade of founding and operating DestiMetrics—give him unique qualifications to help design and implement research metrics that measure what matters and monitor progress down the road to recovery.
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Strategic Planning: Garrison’s extensive experience, broad fact base, and historical role in thought leadership enable him to interpret the research, offer strategic insights about “why it matters", and interpret the resulting “story” to community stakeholders and decision-makers.
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Telling the Story: A gifted orator and natural storyteller, Garrison helps clients frame their stories and is often called to conduct presentations, workshops, and educational forums in addition to his public writing and speaking engagements. His presentation style has been described as “a natural storyteller, witty, sometimes irreverent, but rarely dull.
“I sometimes provide these services a la carte, but more often are combined into a strategic planning package for those who wish to re-frame their business model going forward,” Garrison noted. “And when larger, multi-disciplinary resources warrant, I shift to the larger Advisory Group platform and network of colleagues, including The Insights Collective,” he concluded.