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Vail Valley lodging season metrics show normal January and project a stronger February

Resort lodging is always a tricky business. This weekend, for instance, promises to be interesting with forecast frigid temperatures colliding with the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend.

Overall, though, the mountain resort region’s current season can be described as “OK,” and the Vail Valley is tracking a bit better than that.

Destimetrics, the Business Intelligence Division of Inntopia, tracks lodging and economic data across 17 mountain resorts, including the Vail Valley. Across the competitive set, the news is mostly unchanged from this time a year ago, with daily rates up a bit and occupancy slightly down.



By the numbers

Across the 17 resort areas monitored by Destimetrics, here’s a look at rates and occupancy as of Dec. 31:
• Rates were up 2.9% compared to December 2023.
• Occupancy slipped 2.3% for the same period.
• Full winter occupancy is up 1.2%
• The average daily rate for winter shows a seasonal average up 1.6%.

Local lodging consultant Mark Herron, a longtime veteran of the industry, said he’s seeing spending patterns a bit different this season. With lodging rates holding steady, people are paying for rooms and meals, but aren’t doing as much retail shopping, he observed.

Still, he said, it looks like January of this year is going to be about even with January of 2024 in terms of occupancy, with February up about 5% over last year.

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March and April will be interesting, given how late Easter falls on this year’s calendar. Easter this year is about as late as it can be — April 20. While snow tends to be fine that late into the season, Herron noted that Front Range skiers often have their gear stowed by then.

Still, he noted, April occupancy of this year could be up 8% or more over April of 2024.

But we may not know the answer to that question until the start of Holy Week.

Vail Economic Development Director Mia Vlaar tracks the Destimetrics data, of course, but her office also conducts a straw poll of a handful of properties around town. That poll tracks week-over-week occupancy.

Vlaar said one of the things she’s noticing from that poll is that the winter booking window is getting shorter. That window is usually pretty short in the summer, when Front Range visitors will book a weekend stay to escape the heat.

But for the week between Dec. 31 and Jan. 7, occupancy moved from 77.3% to 85.9%. That’s a big jump, since Vlaar said occupancy will usually move between 2% and 4% in any given week. That week was also unusual in that Vail didn’t see a lot of snow during that period.

“People are looking, waiting and deciding within a week,” whether or not to come, she said.

But for now, things are looking pretty good for the rest of the season, barring any unforeseen shocks like a prolonged lack of snow or some international economic or other shock.

“I think we’re going to come out fairly healthy,” Herron said. Still, he added, mountain resorts continue to run behind historic winter occupancy in terms of rooms booked in advance.


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