Winter Reservations Soft in West - Ski Area Management

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16 October 2015

Push to The Latest: No

SAM Magazine—Denver, Colo., Oct. 16, 2015—While western mountain resorts just wrapped up their third consecutive record-breaking summer season, winter bookings are showing weakness for the first time in more than three years, according to Denver-based DestiMetrics.

DestiMetrics draws its data from approximately 290 property management companies in 19 mountain destination communities in Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming.

For the month of September, occupancy in Western destinations was up 14.9 percent, and revenue leaped 22.7 percent.

But during September, the pace of bookings for the upcoming winter was down 2.3 percent compared to last year. Overall, reservations for November to March are down 1.1 percent from this time last year. But due to increases in the average daily rate, some destinations are actually seeing a 2.1 percent rise in revenue.

“The decrease in the winter booking pace is the first such reversal of momentum in several years, and is a little surprising, because the industry is coming off the best summer ever for mountain destinations, with overall occupancy up more than seven percent and revenues up more than 11 percent for the six-month period of May-October,” said Ralf Garrison, director of DestiMetrics. “And while it is still quite early in the booking season and the numbers are still relatively small, we'll be monitoring both econometrics and weather patterns in the next few weeks to see how they might change bookings patterns—for better or worse.

“Ironically, the exceptional weather in the Rockies and Far West mountain resorts that extended the summer season and contributed to this record-breaking summer is now a possible factor for the slowing in winter bookings. Regardless of the reason, this unexpected dip in winter bookings marks a pattern shift that has us on alert for variables that could impact the coming season.”