GLENWOOD SPRINGS – The Glenwood Springs Tourism Board is planning a marketing research study to determine how to best attract visitors and show them a good time.According to a news release, the first phase of the study evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to tourism within the resort community.”This is a good process for analysis of ideas and opinions, and works amazingly well for strategic planning,” said Kate Collins, according to the release.Collins is the vice president of tourism marketing for the Glenwood Springs Chamber Resort Association.Colorado State University has been commissioned to execute the two-pronged study of sustainable tourism in Glenwood Springs. CSU will use a concept called the “prism of sustainability.” That includes analysis from institutional, environmental, social, cultural and economic contexts.The second phase of the study will be a “consumer intercept study.” Visitors will be questioned at different locations during different seasons about how happy they are with trips to Glenwood. That data can then be measured and interpreted to establish benchmarks over time.”With these tools we can measure how well we’re doing every two to five years or so,” Collins said. “It will help us stay on task and bring some objectivity to a process that can often be very subjective.”The first phase of the study costs $5,000, according to Collins. It should begin in January and continue through the end of March. Additional funds may be budgeted in the future to gather more data from other seasons.Stuart P. Cottrell, Ph.D., will supervise the project. Cottrell works in CSU’s Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources. He and Jana Raadik facilitated the 2007 Glenwood Springs Tourism strategic planning retreat and already have a good working knowledge of Glenwood’s tourism product, the news release states. Research will be conducted by Vanessa Hamm, a graduate of the college of Natural Resource Recreation and Tourism at CSU.”Sustainable tourism development is a concept of development and planning of tourism to protect and preserve the environment in all its aspects – ecological, economic, cultural and institutional – and to respect the way of life of local residents,” Cottrell said.