Eagle County could become home to Colorado International Airport.

• Author: Best, Allen
• Position: TRAVEL

You know of DIA, of course, but have you heard of CIA--as in Colorado International Airport?

That's the name proposed by a consultant who was asked how the airport that is currently the state's third busiest could be better branded. It's located at Gypsum, 37 miles west of Vail. The official title is Eagle County Regional Airport.

The name may sound pretentious, even outlandish. The airport last year recorded only 232,000 commercial passengers, mostly during winter. That's about one-fifth of the traffic at Colorado Springs, the state's second busiest air portal, and less than 1 percent of commercial traffic at Denver International. That does not count private aircraft, which account for 75 percent of planes that use the airport.

About 80 percent of the passengers who use Eagle County Regional are headed to the Vail and Beaver Creek areas, with most of the remaining 20 per cent headed to Aspen and Snowmass. Average fares are significantly higher than at DIA. This is a funnel for Colorado's two best-known and highest-cost resorts.

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Those two resort areas have also always done well among international skiers, which represent 10 percent of skier days at Vail and Beaver Creek and 20 percent or more at Aspen and Snowmass. The international crowd spends big at both resorts. When those visitors take the time to travel, they usually stick around for a week, often longer. They don't clutter up Interstate 70, and often not even local roads. They usually stay at expensive slope-side lodging, buy ski lessons and eat expensive meals.

That the U.S. dollar has weakened against most foreign currencies makes these expensive vacations significantly less expensive to people from Great Britain, Australia, Mexico and Brazil. Numbers are scarce, but anecdotal reports suggest international visitors were a large part of the Colorado ski industry's success this past winter.

Vail Resorts, the operator of Vail and Beaver Creek plus two other ski areas in Summit County, clearly sees potential for carving out more international business, which increased 23 percent for the most recent quarter over last year. The company initiated the $90,000 branding study done by Denver-based marketing consultant Genesis Inc., splitting the cost with Eagle County's government. Key to the choice was partner Graham Button, who had previously worked on branding for Beaver Creek while employed by another firm. He comes...