‘Bad snow years make for bad bookings:’ Economic policies and uneven snowfall behind Colorado ski season’s lackluster end 

The finish line is slightly less glamorous for ski towns on Colorado’s Western Slope this year as the winter season inches to an end.

Data shows western mountain resorts ended the winter season with softer visitation than they had hoped — a consequence of uneven snow conditions, tumultuous economic policies and a late Easter. Colorado’s numbers aren’t much different.

“We’ve seen a lot of pressure on consumers in the last four months, with consumer confidence going down,” said Tom Foley, senior vice president of Business Intelligence for Inntopia.

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Inntopia’s most recent monthly market briefing report — utilizing data from approximately 28,000 lodging units in 17 mountain destination communities across Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho — shows average daily rates and revenues remained steady from November through April.

Occupancy, however, fell during the same period. Compared to 2024, occupancy for the full winter season is down by 0.5% across western mountain resorts. Daily rates are up a seasonal 1.9% thanks to increases in five of the six winter months.

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Despite the lower occupancy, the somewhat higher rates are resulting in a 1.4% increase in seasonal revenues, according to Inntopia’s report. At least for now, this spares Colorado from some of the challenges of a lower-revenue season, though a volatile political landscape is making it more difficult to predict what future seasons could look like.

A drop in international tourism

Foley, author of the market briefing report, said strong pullback from international travelers is partly to blame for the lower occupancy and softer revenue gains.

International tourism to Colorado — and several other parts of the country — had already been on a downward trend since 2015, according to Colorado Tourism Office Director Tim Wolfe. While the state has managed to bounce back on a few occasions, mountain resort towns are still trying to recover international skiers — especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Canadians in particular have pulled back sharply on booking U.S. destinations in 2025, with many going as far as to cancel existing reservations.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada and threats of annexation have driven tensions high between the two countries. Canadian travel groups are reporting dramatic falls in bookings to the U.S. and some tour groups have cancelled visits through the summer, according to reporting by Politico. Analytics firm Tourism Economics projects travel from Canada will decline 20% in 2025, costing the U.S. a whopping $3.4 billion in lost revenue compared to last year.

As of March 31, Canadian-sourced bookings processed through Inntopia’s commerce database for arrivals from January through next September in western mountain resorts are down 22.7% compared to the same time last year, according to the report. The dramatic swing goes from a 5.7% decrease in bookings for January arrivals to a 62% decline for May arrivals.

Compared to the 25% drop in bookings for Western Europe, the collective dissuasion from Canadian travelers is arguably having a considerably larger impact on the country’s tourism economy.

Fortunately for Colorado, visitation from Canada is relatively flat compared with what other U.S. destinations are reporting.

“Air Canada has canceled some other flights in other destinations like Las Vegas and Florida, but their capacity hasn’t changed in Denver,” Wolfe said. “I just think Denver has always been open and welcoming to the Canadians. We have great relationships with our partners that we work with in Canada.”

Mexico, opposite to Canada, is seeing higher visitation across mountain resort communities, according to data from Inntopia.

“Perhaps of more consequence to many of the Colorado resorts is travel from Mexico, which is actually up fairly strongly year over year, from this winter and through to September,” Foley said. “That has a big impact on particularly Eagle County, who have a really strong presence in the Mexican market, but other Colorado resorts as well.”

Canada and Mexico combined account for 46% of Colorado’s international visitation, with Mexico bringing in over 250,000 visitors followed by Canada at 183,000 visitors, according to an April release from the governor’s office. The economic impact of international travel from these two countries in 2024 was over $265 million.

Wolfe said one of the reasons for increased visitation from Mexico is changes in the value of the dollar overseas.

As a result of decreased international travel overall, Foley said he expects markets will start to see more competition for domestic tourists to make up for lost funds. Bookings from domestic travelers to Inntopia’s mountain resorts are currently sitting close to flat, he said.

“If the international market declines, competing destinations are now going after the domestic market,” Foley said. “So I think there’s some competition arising amongst domestic consumers that might not otherwise exist as folks try to pick up from shortfalls.”

On the flipside, Foley said the uncertainty around the market has driven 26-29% of travelers who were initially intending to go abroad this summer to change their plans, meaning more U.S. residents are going to pick domestic destinations for their summer vacations.

“There is a domestic market opportunity there for destinations to capture something (different),” Foley said.

‘Bad snow years make for bad bookings’

The rule of thumb is simple: “Bad snow years make for bad bookings,” Foley said.

“It was an OK, but not great snow year,” Foley said about snowfall across Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. “Those big back-to-back events were rare this year, so it was tough to keep momentum going.”

The uncertainty shared by consumers compounded in a way where snow conditions weren’t compelling enough for some to “override financial anxiety and attract skiers and riders during the winter months,” Foley wrote in the report. 

Another reason behind the region’s fallen occupancy rates had to do with the patterns around school breaks and holidays, Foley said. Tourism in Colorado usually bumps up around the Easter holiday, which in 2024 was on March 31. This year, the holiday came almost three weeks later when several ski resorts had already closed for the season.

“There was a lot of compression last year in March with school breaks and Easter all piling into the last two weeks of the month, and that created a very, very busy March last year, even with moderate snow at the time,” he said. “(This year) Easter got spread out so far that maybe it was just a little bit too late to have folks hitting the slopes.”

Optimism for the summer travel season

Despite the slower end to the 2024-25 winter ski season, summer bookings, which generally show lower rates in mountain destinations, are showing more spark.

“In March, we saw the focus of bookings shift from the winter months, largely, toward the summer,” Foley said. “I think that had to do with some big temperature warm-ups in urban markets that usually distracts folks from the ski product.”

Bookings made in March for arrivals in March through August added 5.3 percentage points in occupancy this year, which is down slightly from the 5.4 percent incremental fill recorded in March 2024. Though this marks the fourth consecutive month with a decline in booking pace, bookings for May through August all increased, according to Foley’s report.

Colorado hasn’t yet reached its peak season for summer booking. Only around 25% of the transactions and under 30% of the revenue for all of last summer have been booked so far this year, meaning there’s potential for booking to go in either direction.

Summer travel can also be more difficult to project compared with winter since it’s less reliant on weather, and more strongly reflects the “economic mood of the mountain travel consumer.”

“Although the summer numbers on occupancy are down slightly, this is early in the booking season and we will get a much better picture of how consumers are feeling about their warm weather travel plans amidst all this economic turmoil in the next 4-6 weeks,” Foley wrote in the report.

“We’re just full-steam ahead and making sure everybody knows Colorado is open and welcoming to all international travel,” Wolfe said, adding that the state’s newly announced digital passport will help encourage travel to all 64 counties across the state starting in the summer. “We’ve got a number of different programs that are going to definitely catch the eye of the international traveler.”

With Colorado’s 150th birthday coming up, counties across the state are working on celebrations that are sure to draw in crowds.

“We can’t wait to be the megaphone and get that word out there to those international travelers so they can peek at those lesser-known and rural destinations,” Wolfe said.

“We have an exciting opportunity with the Sundance Film Festival coming in 2027 during a relatively quiet period for our state, and we expect to see tourism expand well into the mountain areas and help support small businesses,” said Eve Lieberman, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.