To apply for this scholarship, you need to:

• be 21 years of age or older and a resident of Colorado 
• be a small business owner, a volunteer of or employed by an entity within a sector of the Colorado tourism industry
• first-time attendee of the Governor's Tourism Conference 
• not be a current State of Colorado employee

Scholarship awards will be limited to one person per organization. Scholarships are awarded to individuals and are non-transferrable.

The Colorado Governor's Tourism Conference Student Sponsorship is available for university student first-time attendees. The sponsorship covers conference registration and hotel. 

 Applications are closed. Please sign up for the Colorado Tourism Office email updates.

Apply online through the OEDIT application portal. Log in or create a new account. New users are manually added to the portal for security reasons, so activating your account may take several days.

The application process is as follows:

1. Verify your eligibility by reading through the guidelines carefully.
2. Prepare your application materials by filling out this Governors Tourism Conference Professional Scholarship Application Materials (DOCX). This document includes all application questions.
3. Submit your full application in the OEDIT application portal.
4. Applications will be reviewed.
5. Scholarship status notification within one week after the application closes.

Applicants will be notified with a decision. This is a competitive award program, and not all applicants receive the award. A panel of Colorado Tourism staff reviews applications and recommends awards based on application scores and available funds. 

The panel reviews applications on these criteria:

• Merit (50%): your qualifications, background, experience, and eagerness to learn.
• Impact (50%): how you plan to apply the skills and knowledge gained to benefit your career, your organization, and your destination or industry sector

The Colorado Tourism Office will reimburse lodging (minus incidentals), hotel parking, and mileage expenses after you:

• attend the conference
• submit expense receipts
• submit a final report that the Colorado Tourism Office reviews and accepts

For 2023 Scholarship Recipients:

On or before October 30, 2023, you will need to submit:

• readable invoices, proof of payment, and itemized expense receipts that show the date of the expense
• a final report to describe what you accomplished with the scholarship

The following table outlines the timeline for the scholarships awarded in 2023.