December 2025
DCA BOARD WELCOMES TWO NEW MEMBERS
DCA welcomes Cord Rauba and Mike Perez to the Board of Directors. Cord and Mike received the most votes from the DCA membership. The Board expressed their appreciation to all 4 nominees and is excited to add new perspectives and ideas as we move forward in 2026.
ONE-YEAR ABATEMENT OF DEN MARKETING FEE
DCA successfully champions one-year abatement of DEN Marketing Fee.
In September the DCA Board met with DEN leadership including Phil Washington, Pam DeChant, George Karayiannakis and Branden Sowers. The meeting covered updates on airport development, and relations with City Council. The Board then presented issues on behalf of all of the airport concessionaires.
The first major item presented was a discussion of the marketing fee: the total funds within the marketing fee account, the monthly revenue from the marketing fee, and the monthly expenses. Several of the DCA Board members sit on the DEN Marketing Committee and were aware there was a large surplus in the account. The discussion was a potential abatement for one year and/or a permanent reduction of the marketing fee percentage.
The airport supported the potential one-year abatement of the marketing fee as an efficient way to proceed with helping the concessionaires as a permanent reduction in the percentage fee would require lease ammendment for all of the 208 concessions locations. The airport committed to review the steps necessary to execute the abatement.
In November the DCA Board met with DEN Executive Leadership to discuss efforts to open a security gate strictly for employee access. Several additional airport staff members presented their current efforts, as well as potential solutions. The DCA Board emphasized the negative moral caused by the lack of separate employee access. Although no immediate solution was created the DCA Board will continue efforts to achieve this goal.
The next item discussed was airport legal approval to execute the one-year abatement of the marketing fee. This abatement applies to every retail and food & beverage concessionaire. The agreement the DCA Board made was that the abatement applies to marketing fees due January through December, 2026. Any concessionaire opening during 2026 would receive the abatement for the months they are open. All concessionaires should have received a letter from DEN detailing the one-year abatement.
The DCA Board will continue discussion of a permanent reduction of the marketing fee later next year once the impact of additional concession businesses and the impact of the abatement on the total marketing fund is further developed.