Snowmass trails other ski towns in summer bookings
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As of mid-May, summer tourism in Snowmass Village is pacing below last year’s rate, the latest Snowmass Tourism Talk revealed.
“Our summer season is down 20% in room nights booked,” said Rose Abello, Snowmass Tourism director. “We’re using room night books because it really gives a better sense. Occupancy varies based on how many rooms are available to be rented. … Room nights booked is an absolute.”
She said June through September are considered the summer months, and they are all currently pacing below last year. June is down 7.6%, July is down 28%, August is down 30.94%, and September is down 13.03%, according to numbers presented by Abello.
Snowmass isn’t the only resort seeing a drop in occupancy and rooms booked for the coming summer.
“We’re not alone in this,” she said. “Room nights booked at all the Destimetrics resorts are down.”
Snowmass is about 17% booked for the summer across the board, Abello said. The average across all other mountain resorts whose data is managed by Destimetrics is 25%.
Winter tourism in Snowmass Village finished strong with a 55% paid occupancy rate across the entire season. According to Destimetrics, February had the highest paid occupancy rate of the season at 75%. March was right behind at 74% and January at 73%.
Destimetrics compiles data for most major resorts, and according to a webinar she attended, Snowmass finished with a better total occupancy rate than the average of all the resorts, which was 53%.
“Except for the first and last month, Snowmass fared better than most of the ski resorts and we finished at 55%,” she said.
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Snowmass also fared better than other resorts in average daily rate, averaging $679 compared to $598 across all resorts for the winter season.
“We outpaced on occupancy and in ADR, which is not uncommon. Typically, Snowmass is number one or two across all the resorts in occupancy,” Abello said.
According to her, the sky is not falling, but everyone will need to work a bit harder this year.
“The abundance of demand we have seen over the last few years is just not here this year,” she said. “In a typical year, we are about 19% booked by this time of year. This year we are at 17%, down from a record of 22% last year.”
To reach Audrey Ryan, email her at aryan@aspentimes.com.
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