Tourism to mountain resort towns in the West is getting off to a slow start this summer.
The pace of booking for lodging around 17 destinations, including Vail, Colo., Sun Valley, Idaho, and Jackson Hole, Wyo., slowed for the sixth month in a row in May — the longest downward streak since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bookings in May for the rest of the summer were down 7.1% compared to last year.
The data, sourced from 28,000 hotels, rentals and cabins, was collected by DestiMetrics, part of the travel company Inntopia.
"We continue to see a lot of, really, malaise in the mountain travel industry," said Tom Foley, the director of business intelligence for Inntopia.
Memorial Day was "so-so" for these mountain towns, he said, and the two most important months for summer tourism, July and August, are underperforming.
Foley said economic turbulence is the most likely culprit driving the hesitancy to book Western getaways.
Even though consumer sentiment improved in May, consumers are still bracing for an economic slowdown, according to the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index.
"People just don't know what to make of what's going on," said Foley.
Sometimes, these outdoor recreation-focused destinations remain insulated from ebbs and flows of the wider economy. That's not the case this year, Foley said.
"I think there's some degree of reckoning," said Foley. "Where we have, for a long time, had some amount of immunity from greater economic impacts. The mountain traveler tends to be more affluent."
But these travelers are more price sensitive right now, just as lodging rates in mountain towns are going up. They're looking for bargains and cheaper options or committing to shorter stays.
Though the rates of booking declines have been small, Foley said, the impacts can add up.
When fewer tourists stay overnight in these destinations, it can affect local tax revenue and have downstream effects on main street spending.
Western mountain destinations are also seeing fewer international visitors, according to DestiMetrics. Bookings are down from Canada by 55%, amid ongoing tariff negotiations, and have dropped from western Europe and Mexico too.
Updated hotel and rental data from the past month, set to be released soon, could reveal whether tourism has warmed up in time for the July 4th holiday.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado, and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by CPB.
