ALTA, Wyo. — The Ghee’s blue buses will be helping travelers reach their adventure destinations with a newly launched airport shuttle.
Grand Targhee Resort said the staff began discussing a solution for an airport shuttle in December. At the end of March, the resort’s Marketing Director, Jill Gaylord, made a post on the Teton Valley community page on Facebook announcing that the brainstorm had come to fruition.
“There was one day with about 10 posts of people looking for rides to Jackson. It was clear there was a need,” Gaylord told Buckrail.
Gaylord said Targhee’s team had been discussing transitioning the private shuttle offering to an open community service in December because of the constant posts on the Community Page by people looking for rides to JAC“We have the tools and the resources to provide a solution, so we figured out how to make it happen. We hope it’s successful and gives people peace of mind on how they can get to and from the airport,” she said.
Many things had to come together to bring about the shuttle service, from staffing and airline schedules to updating options in the resort’s point-of-sale system and e-commerce platforms. Gaylord said it was easier said than done. From start to finish, the process took about three months to implement and launch.
“And that was on an expedited timeline,” she said.
Gaylord told Buckrail that START has done “something great by starting the pilot shuttle program within Jackson.”
“We hope we can either provide a connection to it with our Miller Park drop option or provide the full service to the airport that it seems people need,” she added.
“We have the tools and ability to provide a service and decided to pivot, because why not? We are seeing that more and more and are talking about how we can provide additional services to the community with the tools we have. Stay tuned for more on this as we are developing a Friday program to help out with the four-day school week too.”
So far the response has been positive, according to Gaylord.
Miller shared that the early morning shuttle drops off at Miller Park while the other two go directly to the airport. “We saw a lot of people looking for early rides and we have an empty shuttle that drives over early in the morning, why not offer rides on it? The option that only goes to Miller Park is a winter-only service; Ride GTR doesn’t operate in the summer,” she explained.
“Hopefully we’ll also get a lot of interest from the community,” she said. “We’ve mostly seen summer interest so far since it’s so late in the season, but that was to be expected,” Gaylord said.
“Right now it will only be available during our operating seasons, but if the demand is there, year-round service is not off the table.”
Information such as schedule and pricing can be found on Grand Traghee’s website. The service will continue into the summer.
