Snowmass approves 2026 budget amid expected tourism decline

Snowmass last week approved a budget reflecting a “cautious economic outlook.”

The town on Nov. 3 approved its $177 million 2026 budget that town staff said is cautious due to a slowdown in international travel as well as national and state economic uncertainty, according to an Oct. 6 Snowmass budget message. The message adds that the expected impact from the scheduled 2027 Aspen/Pitkin County Airport closure and a potential renovation of a hotel “and other potential commercial sites” is also on the town’s radar.

This year’s $177 million budget is still higher compared to $166.2 million of proposed expenditures in 2025 and $69 million of projected expenditures in 2024. 

“While we expect growth in revenue to continue, we do expect the rate of growth to curtail considerably and revenues to grow in a much more moderate manner,” the budget message reads. 

According to a Sept. 30 occupancy report by DestiMetrics, a company that tracks Snowmass occupancy trends, the town’s six-month winter occupancy was trending 13% lower than the winter occupancy trend at the same time the previous year.

“We are seeing more last minute business, and more unpredictable business, and the hotels have all reported that,” Snowmass Tourism Director Julia Theisen told Snowmass Town Council last week, adding that she would expect occupancy trends to change throughout the rest of the fall.

“The hotels are reporting that people are booking much more last minute, even on the international front, and business is just more unpredictable than it has been in the past,” she said.

The report, however, expects lodging revenues to decrease by only 5.8%, as Snowmass has raised their Average Daily Rates, or the price they charge for a room, by 8.3% this winter compared to last. The town predicted the 2.4% lodging tax would see a revenue generation in 2026 consistent with 2025.

With the cautious outlook, the $177 million budget focused on several key priorities. 

The budget allocated $129 million to capital projects that include $82.5 million allotted to the Draw Site employee housing project, a five-story building constituting 66 units of workforce housing. The town expects to begin construction on the site as early as September 2026.

The budget also includes $8.5 million allotted to construct a roundabout at the intersection of Owl Creek and Brush Creek roads. Snowmass anticipates construction for the project — which would flatten the grade of the intersection from 6% or 7% to 2% and is expected to reduce traffic — to begin in spring 2026 and continue through November 2026, at the latest. 

The town budgeted another $8.5 million to renovate the Little Red School House property, planning to add a building behind the existing school house with a footprint seven times the size of the current building, doubling the property’s childcare capacity from 30 to 60. The 14-month construction period is expected to begin in May or June 2026. 

Snowmass has also budgeted $6 million to the Villas North renovation, seeking to replace the original wood siding of the villas, located on Snowmass Club Road, in 2026.

Town Council decided to cut the proposed Snowmass Mall Transit Center from next year’s capital improvement plans. Though construction is not scheduled next year for the two-story, $44 million design, which has an anticipated build-time of 40 months, council set aside $9 million in the 2026 budget to continue working on the plan.

Snowmass also noted in a press release that the town has invested in new staffing positions in the Town Manager’s Office and in Human Resources, and has continued to invest in the town’s environmental goals by allocating funding for building electrification and efficiency studies, wildfire mitigation, and more.

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.