Arthur G. Birdwell

September 11, 2000
Thanks for sending to me the Jackson Hole Travel Guide that I ordered. It is very informative and professionally designed. It appears to contain all the information I will need to make my visit to Jackson Hole next year successful and memorable. Thank you.

Amazon.com Customer Comments

A reader from Madison, Wisconsin , April 27, 1999
Excellent resource. Full of valuable information!
This is a fantastic book. It has many of the local businesses featured, as well as many services available. Anyone planning a trip to Jackson Hole would find this very useful, and it is small and compact, easy to carry with you.

The Jackson Hole Travel Guide answers all the "How to's" and "Where to's" of visiting Jackson Hole. Helpful information on lodging and activities, as well as handy maps and locals' tips, make this guide the perfect traveling companion.

Kimberly Ervin, Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce

Congratulations on your successful publication of the Jackson Hole Travel Guide. I have just received a copy, and it looks great. The layout is excellent and it contains a wealth of information for visitors to that part of our great state.

As an old Wyoming history buff I especially appreciate the section you devoted to the history of the area. A lot has happened over the years in Jackson Hole, and you have caught the essence of the area.

Sincerely,


Bill Gentle, Tourism Director, Wyoming Business Council

New Travel Guide links each page to Web site.
by Jeffrey Buchanan Miller

Just about every travel guide I've packed ends up being pitched on the campfire within the first night of the trip. However, the Jackson Hole Travel Guide just might be worth that little extra weight in the saddle bag.

This past week, Circumerro Publishing began the distribution of its new guide in an effort to bridge the gap between travel planning at home and actually hitting the trail. With past publications such as the Jackson Hole Guest Directory, Circumerro Publishing is no greenhorn in the market of travel destinations. But what is new is its cutting-edge approach toward consumers.

" People like it because the quality is quite good, and it's very complete and well organized - There is nothing like it. "

"We wanted to slip into the travel guide market where the big publishers leave off, because with 3 to 4 million guests in this area a year, that's a pretty big market, but not big enough for the Sierra Club or Fodor's or any of the big guide companies to pick it up and do just Jackson Hole," said Latham Jenkins, president of Circumerro Publishing.

"The reason we know the guide is going to be successful is because travel planning starts on-line," Jenkins said.

He explained that the Jackson Hole Travel Guide serves as a sort of TV guide that works in tandem with the web site www.jackson-hole.com. Each page has a link so that consumers can find out more information on any given product, service, activity or attraction. Jenkins described the idea as a hybrid publishing model that is between being advertising-driven and editorial-driven in which revenues are split between advertising and wholesale sales.

Travel guide thumpers might initially question this quantity of advertising, but its creators affirm that the write-ups are fair. "We didn't write up the best burger or bar in town. We tried to stay a little more neutral in those areas because we did accept money for the listing," said Jenkins. "I call it a hybrid model because truly a travel guide would not accept revenue to write up any of these places, but we have to have that revenue in order to offset the cost of doing the project."

At $6.95, nearly the price for a bowl of soup in Jackson Hole, the pocket-sized guide dishes out a brimming amount of travel information for the traveler to devour during his or her stay. This guide is not for the shoe-string traveler looking for the 10 best hikes, however; rather it is directed toward the consumer seeking the run-of-the-mill doings such as lodging, dining and shopping.

Aside from this, the travel guide goes beyond the standard with sections such as "Jackson Hole Today," which addresses, appropriately enough, the pressures of growth in a resort community. Highlighted with enticing photographs, the guide also includes a pull-out map in the back that shows both the town as well as the whole valley.

"We set out to design a piece that was very comprehensive, giving information that you don't normally find, such as what to bring, and really to find out how to get here all the way down to the taxi companies that run in town," explained Jenkins. "A lot of people do address the airlines that serve the valley, but not how to get from the airport to your lodging facility."

Copies of the Jackson Hole Travel Guide are currently being distributed throughout the valley, as well as nationally. They can also be obtained on-line. Thus far, both the Valley Bookstore and the Teton Bookshop have received positive reactions.

"People like it because the quality is quite good, and it's very complete and well organized," said Gene Downer, owner of the Teton Bookshop. "There is nothing like it."

Firm combines print, Internet publishing.
by David Simpson

Hoping to merge the worlds of print publishing and the internet, a growing local company has unveiled a new travel guide to Jackson Hole that relies heavily on travel inquiries funneling through electronic connections.

Free printed guides offering specific types of information to tourists are already numerous, as are regional travel guides for the Rocky Mountains, specific states, or Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

But no one has focused a pocket-style travel guide for Jackson Hole. Until now. The 162-page Jackson Hole Travel Guide, created by Circumerro Publishing, is the first all-encompassing guide specifically for the Jackson area.

"Sure visitors might spend their days out in the park, but they look very much forward to coming back to town and going out to eat or going shopping," said Latham Jenkins, president and founder of Circumerro.

With the new travel guide, "it's no longer you're going to Grand Teton National Park, and you'll spend the night in Jackson," Jenkins said. "You're going to Jackson Hole."

Jenkins said he had to create a new model for his publication. Most travel or tourist guides are either free and supported by advertising revenues, or they are larger, more broad-based books that rely on proceeds from retail sales.

In trying to make the guide profitable in a smaller, niche market, Jenkins said he had to combine those models, selling the guide for $6.95, but also offering limited advertising space inside.

"We've had to create a hybrid model to make it work, but yet with three to four million guests annually in the area, that's a significant market to tap into," Jenkins said.

Advertising space is limited to the left-side pages. Jenkins said equal editorial space is allocated to all local tourism-related businesses, whether they buy ad space or not.

After hitting the streets two weeks ago, the guide is being sold locally and regionally at retail stores. Jenkins said he intends for the bulk of sales to come from mail orders placed through the Internet. The guides will be purchased by visitors who know they are coming to Jackson Hole and are looking for a way to get them familiar with the area in advance.

Besides creating a web site where visitors researching Jackson Hole electronically can easily locate the Jackson Hole Travel Guide, Jenkins' venture relies on the Internet in other ways. At the bottom of each page, the guide lists web sites where visitors can look up additional information on the topic being covered in that section of the guide. If individual businesses have web sites, the book lists those as well.

"In looking at travel these days, most people are going to start gathering their information on-line," Jenkins said. "And when you're going through this book, you follow on-line by following the web sites at the bottom of each page." He also said through providing a comprehensive list of all the services offered in Jackson Hole, the travel guide allows visitors to continue their own research and find a particular small business that would otherwise be difficult to locate.

"We find that the search engines in the web are getting so clogged that it's getting hard to get down to the individual businesses," Jenkins said. "But we can send them to those web sites very quickly. Then when they get here they know who they want to do their river rafting with, where they want to dine, and where they want to go shopping. That's why I call this a 'TV Guide' to the web."

Jenkins said he plans to take his idea for the publication and build similar guides to other resort areas both in the Rockies, and ultimately, for other destinations as well.

Formerly known as First Light Ventures, Circumerro Publishing and Jenkins have been in business locally since 1992.

"A lot of people outside of the valley thought we were a religious organization," he said of the recent name change to Circumerro.

Jenkins' nine-person staff also takes on a variety of other projects, including designing and publishing promotional materials for businesses, printing a visitor's map to Jackson Hole, publishing the Jackson Hole Guest Directory - which is found in many local hotels - and creating visitors' guides for other resort areas.

The company also offers web-site design, and specializes in coupling Internet-site design with printed support materials.

"We believe print will always be here," Jenkins said. "We believe print will support what is going on on-line because people will always want to have a piece they can take with them."

A Circumerro Publishing Product