Pent-up demand from a bad snow year is driving up summer bookings in Colorado, but visitors might not spend as much

Travelers are making up for a slow winter season. For Colorado, this means a promising growth in bookings, rates and revenue to resort destinations — though economic uncertainty means some might be holding on tighter to their dollars.

“What we have been tracking since late February is compelling data that suggests that if people didn’t get their mountain ‘fix’ this winter, they intend to get it this summer — if the economy, geopolitics and the weather behave as hoped,” said Tom Foley, director of business intelligence for Inntopia, in the travel platform’s April market briefing.

The full winter season ended with a modest 1.2% seasonal increase in rates but a notable drop in occupancy for resort destinations — down 7% — in states tracked by Inntopia. This includes Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The higher rates weren’t enough to save resorts from the impacts, and lower occupancy resulted in a 5.9% drop in revenue compared to last winter. April alone saw aggregated monthly revenues drop by 21.9% across the region.

Now, travelers who deferred their winter trips are boosting demand for summer lodging.

Colorado’s summer bookings, occupancy, rates and revenue are all on a steady upward trajectory for most of the summer season as of April 30.

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Bookings made in April for arrival through September are up 2.9% in Colorado, compared to a 9.6% increase for the western region as a whole. Foley said both figures are partially suppressed by the negative pace for April arrivals, which was down 56.6% for Colorado resorts.

“Neither is a surprise given early closures (and) bad snow in April,” Foley told the Summit Daily News.

On the other hand, positive growth in summer bookings means average daily rates are also up by 2% for the summer, with increases in all six months.

Because the 2% rate increase falls below both the national 3.6% wage growth rate and 3.8% inflation rate, Foley said the positive occupancy growth could also be credited to summer lodging prices feeling less expensive than in past years.

The combination of solid occupancy and rates is currently delivering a healthy 10% increase in seasonal lodging revenue for Colorado destinations. May and July are particularly strong months for revenue so far, up 17% and 19% respectively based on bookings made through April 30. These positive months are balanced out by “anti-peaks,” including in August, which is down 1%, Foley said.

“It’s a tough hole to dig out of,” Foley said about the winter’s revenue losses. “But anybody you know who’s keeping the books is going to be happy with 10%.”

“The nuance is that summer revenue and winter revenue have to be thought about quite differently,” Foley continued. “An average daily rate in summer is only about 60-65% of what it is during the winter, and so the winter losses require, theoretically, 35-40% more bookings to break even for the losses on the negative side.”

Colorado’s gains so far into the summer season are slightly softer than the rest of destination markets tracked by Inntopia, Foley said, which is normal for a winter-driven tourism state.

“There’s a historic context to keep in mind, and that is that Colorado tends to be a softer summer destination,” Foley said. “It just doesn’t perform as much, and it’s largely because of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in Lake Tahoe, and these huge summer destination magnets.”

In terms of international travel, the western region is seeing some improvements in 2026 summer bookings to Inntopia’s markets, though they remain down sharply from 2024. Overall bookings from the four primary international markets are up a slight 4.1% compared to last summer, a marginal difference compared to last year’s 52.4% drop in international visitors from the summer of 2024. Canada is up 12.6% from last year but down 42.6% from 2024. Mexico is down 21.9%, Western Europe is down 9.2%, and Oceania is down 7%, according to the April market briefing.

Travelers react to an uncertain economy

Although summer is looking promising, it’s still early in the planning season for bookings. With factors like rising cost of living and unstable gasoline and airfare prices, spending confidence could look different in a couple of months.

“I think we need to look at this period heading into summer, from an economic point of view, as the glory days of summer 2026,” Foley said. “My expectation with things like diesel up 59%, which is what fuels the trains and the trucks that deliver goods to market, is that inflation isn’t coming down anytime soon. The war could end tomorrow, and it will be up for months.”

One notable shift in spending is that luxury properties — those priced higher than $401 per night — are currently dominating occupancy and rates for the summer, while moderate properties (between $251 and $450 per night) experienced moderate gains. Economy properties, priced at $250 per night or lower, are the only property pulling back on summer rates in an attempt to increase occupancy.

“We know for a fact that people at the lower end and moderate end of the pay scale are suffering more than those at the luxury end,” Foley said. “The luxury end are … seeing their savings going up. They feel like they have more discretionary spending, and they operate at a consumer confidence level that’s closer to 110 points than the 92 we’re at.”

Additionally, Foley pointed out that Thursday and Friday bookings leading up to Fourth of July weekend are down compared to last year, while mid-week bookings after the Saturday holiday are up.

“That’s usually an economic factor,” Foley said. “For the most part, it has to do with the fact that room rates are less expensive Monday through Thursday than they are Friday through Sunday. … When there is economic pressure on people, which there very definitely is right now, especially for economy and moderate consumers, they tend to gravitate towards mid-week stays.”

Booking lead-times from the date of reservation to the date of arrival have also been pushed out to 56.4 days in April — 15.5% longer than last year, according to data from all seven states. This marks the longest lead-time on record for this time of year since the start of the pandemic in April 2020.

Although pent-up demand from the slow winter makes it difficult to isolate impacts to bookings from ongoing increases in gas and airfare prices, Foley said changes to consumer behavior could become clearer as Colorado approaches the 2026-27 winter season.

“We’re not seeing primarily drive markets suffer any more than primarily fly markets, but everything’s doing fairly strongly,” Foley said. “(Gas prices) have to be having an impact on perhaps shorter drives … but we don’t have evidence of it yet.”