SAM Magazine—Winter Park, Colo., Oct. 15, 2026—Strong occupancy and rates in both September and October wrapped up the summer season at western mountain lodging properties on a high note after an August cost-driven dip in bookings. However, economic pressures and consumer caution spurring from last season’s dismal snowfall are combining to significantly dampen occupancy and rates for the first five months of the upcoming winter, according to the DestiMetrics monthly Market Briefing from Inntopia.
The Market Briefing aggregates lodging performance from properties in 17 resort communities across the Mountain West.
“We’ve known for a couple of months that the full summer was going to finish very strong despite the wobble in August,” said Tom Foley, director of Business Intelligence for Inntopia. “But, and it is a big one, that ‘snow hangover’ we talk about after a tough snow year is very apparent in the data collected through September 30 and this winter is running well behind last year…and the five worst snow years since 2005.”
In a year-over-year comparison to last September, occupancy for the month was up 6.6 percent, the average daily rate (ADR) was up a substantial 9.6 percent, and the combination of both delivered an aggregated 16.7 percent gain in revenue for the month.
As of Sept. 30, occupancy for the full summer was up 2 percent, with increases in all months except August. Daily rates climbed 6 percent with the strong gains posted in September and October. Growth in both occupancy and ADR provided a seasonal 8.2 percent gain in summer revenues.
Looking ahead, however, winter is a different story. Occupancy on-the-books for November through March as of Sept. 30 was down 8.3 percent, with declines in all five months, ranging from a 4.6 percent dip in February to a dramatic 17.1 percent in March. November is essentially flat while December is down 6.9 percent.
Despite the booking numbers, on-the-books ADR for the five months was up 1.4 percent, with every month but December posting higher rates. December was down 3.5 percent. The slight seasonal uptick in rate is not sufficient to offset the lower occupancy, and properties are currently facing a 7 percent decline in winter revenues.
A comparison of bookings and occupancy in the past 21 years for bookings following the five poorest seasons for snowfall showed that those years averaged a slight 0.5 percent gain in occupancy and a modest 2.5 percent gain in ADR as of Sept. 30. Following the five best snowfall seasons, occupancy increased 1 percent while rates moved up 4 percent.
“Economic pressure is playing a big part in how consumers are behaving in their mountain travel planning,” said Foley. “And while we don’t cover it in detail, we can’t overlook the increase in interest rates last month and that is making credit card debt—the primary source of consumer travel spending—considerably more expensive.
“Although daily room rates this summer were strong, bargain hunting behavior has been apparent since May when months with higher prices were recording shorter stays than usual and the more value-priced months of September and October outperformed all other months since June.”
While summer performance was record breaking, Foley cautioned that “consumers remain unconvinced at this point about committing to a booking—even with all the hopes for a strong El Niño snowfall pattern … As always, weather is uncontrollable so it is likely that value added promotions and rate adjustments will need to be part of the equation this winter to get skiers and riders booking.”
