The
culinary festival was held Feb. 23 to March 8, 2013 with participating
restaurants offering a multi-course meal for the “mile high” fixed price
of $52.80 for two, or $26.40 for one.
Based
on a survey of participating restaurants, a record 436,650 meals were
served during DRW 2013, up 8 percent over the 404,400 total meals served
in 2012. Traffic on the DenverRestaurantWeek.com website saw almost 7
million page views, up slightly from last year. This year, 31 percent of
the traffic came from a mobile device, reflecting national trends on
the way people access information today. A total of 85 restaurants
participated in DRW for the first time in 2013.
“The
record-setting numbers for Denver Restaurant Week 2013, both in terms
of the number of restaurants participating and the number of diners
eating out, show how popular and important this event has become to
residents and visitors,” said Richard Scharf, president & CEO of
VISIT DENVER.
Denver
Restaurant Week began in 2005 with the goal of stimulating local
restaurant business, while also creating national “buzz” about Denver’s
dining scene.
“We
are particularly happy to see nearly 7 million website views and a 5
percent increase in unique page views because one of the primary reasons
we put on Denver Restaurant Week is to create conversation and
awareness about the city’s growing culinary scene. We don’t just want to
stimulate restaurant business for two weeks, we want to increase
restaurant business all year-round,” Scharf said.
Each
of the 7 million page views reflects someone looking at a restaurant
menu. “The average person looked at eight menus every time they came to
the site, learning more about the many places there are to dine out in
Denver,” Scharf said.
Scharf
stated that all tourism funds generated from DRW go to marketing Denver
as a convention and tourism destination. “We are a non-profit agency,
so we don’t make money from an event. Every penny that VISIT DENVER
generates goes towards bringing visitors to Denver. In 2011, overnight
visitors spent $669 million in Denver restaurants,” Scharf said.
