I’ve been saying “there’s never a dull moment” for the better part of three and half years now. And it’s been true. Consider: the 2019-20 season pacing towards occupancy records interrupted by a global pandemic, then shut-down, gradual reopening, flush wallets, remote travel, revenge travel, inflation, threat of recession, in-migration, out-migration, housing crises, and the rise of the resident. And that’s just a partial list. 

Tracking it all at Inntopia has been like juggling smoke, but the intelligence gained has been invaluable. I’ve also spent much of the last three years looking at these issues as part of the Insights Collective think tank, where we’ve taken that list and identified the pandemic and post-pandemic forces at play, i.e., items that are driving fundamental changes in destination resort communities. And from that analysis, one thing is clear: these forces have converged in such a way as to have a profound impact on how local communities feel about their destination travel economy.  

The Importance of Balance

From elected officials to lifties, emergency services to grocery stores, and long-term residents to new arrivals, not to mention the travelers themselves, many mountain communities find themselves out of balance, with the historic goals of the town and its industry being challenged or upset by a new vision of how residents and visitors see the future of the community. 

For communities, balance matters greatly. How a destination feels to residents drives a sense of community, which in turn is reflected in how the community is perceived. 

A positive, balanced community fosters internal goodwill and a strong place in the market. Poor balance and churn can lead to infighting, changes in funding mechanisms for public and industry services, and a negative projection in the market that can influence everything from visitation to housing values. At the end of the day, “community” is achieved when towns can understand and can support the right balance of service and industry that reflect the values of the constituency.  

The Forces at Play

Here are a few simplified examples that are showing up as central themes across mountain destination resorts. 

• Overcrowding: Perceived or real, overcrowding has been a hot-button issue in mountain towns for a long time, but was—like many issues—exacerbated by the pandemic. Local residents have pushed back, adopting a defensive position to preserve their homes from what appeared to be increasingly un-savvy outdoor recreation enthusiasts flocking to the mountains. The result was increased calls to shift from destination marketing (come one, come all) to destination management (right guest, right time, right price). And, while most towns are now experiencing pre-pandemic visitation numbers, the momentum of the movement remains.

• In-migration: The movement of people from urban to rural communities was a consequence of several factors, including a pandemic desire for isolation, a flush of disposable income, and an opportunity to work and school remotely. One key consequence of in-migration is an increase in the share of local residents that are independent of the tourism economy, who may believe that they have no stake in its success or failure. This adds to the voices pushing back against tourism. A second consequence is, of course, less workforce housing. This leads to...

• Out-migration: The movement of locals from mountain communities. Triggered by the opportunity to cash out of their longtime mountain homes, the loss of residents who are tied directly to the tourism economy means there are fewer residents who support the industry. Like the locals who have pushed back against overcrowding, industry supporters are highly passionate about the look, feel, and culture of the community—but by moving out, their voices may be lost. 

Even without taking into account other forces like climate change, technology, demographic shifts, and the economy and labor markets, it’s easy to see how these three forces can and have changed the tenor of discourse in mountain communities. The challenge for officials then becomes understanding how to approach such fundamental change opportunities.  

Tourism Centric or Resident Centric

So, can we properly understand community imbalance so it can be addressed in a systematic and meaningful way? Picture for a moment a horizontal line. On the left side is the label “Tourism,” on the right is “Resident,” and in the middle is a sliding scale with an infinite number of stops, any of which might be a point that defines where a destination lands on a “destination continuum.” 

Focus on tourism. For decades, mountain resort towns have, for the most part, been on the tourism-centric side of the scale. In other words, they’ve been destinations that rely heavily upon, and are structured to support, the success of an inbound tourist trade, sometimes—or at least in some respects—at the cost of supporting residential needs. And while these towns have also had a healthy local economy, that local economy has been built around the policies and infrastructure that support the promotion of tourism as the primary economic driver. 

But there have been prominent changes in local sentiment since the pandemic, driven largely by the in-migration of new residents, the out-migration of many community lifers, and overcrowding. The voices of both long-term and new residents in defense of quality of life and lifestyle—which some believe is incongruous with a booming tourist trade—have risen dramatically over the past three years, and there’s a palatable shift towards a more resident-centric focus in many mountain towns. 

Rise of residents. Officials in many towns are being asked to turn their attention to the resident-centric side of the scale and reassess the long-term vision of their town as a tourism-centric destination. They’re in the position of needing to find a balance between the need to sustain a healthy tourism-based economy and the new sentiment of returning to a quieter, “less-is-more” lifestyle from their constituents. They need to find their place on the continuum.

But changing a community’s lifestyle is challenging. Changing a community’s economic focus, even a little, is a massive undertaking. And understanding what and how much to change to meet the seemingly conflicting goals of industry and residents is critical. 

The process starts with identifying where a town exists on the tourist-to-resident continuum, then identifying where it wants to be, and, lastly, measuring its journey along the way. Having tools that quantify the beginning, the middle, and the end of a shift in one’s place on the continuum is key to success. 

Defining centricity. The Insights Collective has partnered with the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) and Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) to develop tools that help towns determine where they reside between tourism- and resident-centricity, taking into account a huge set of variables that define that centricity. 

Centricity is a difficult thing to quantify. While one person, entity, or council may think a town is on one or another side of that spectrum, a local resident, firefighter, car salesman, schoolteacher, or tourist may feel differently. As may a permanent resident versus a part-timer. At the same time, while policy may reflect one intent, physical systems or resources may reflect another. 

Those differences make tourism- or resident-centricity sound like very qualitative opinions. But the process can be a lot more quantitative than one might think, which means we can develop ways to start measuring it.  

Perception is Everything

To define where a destination is on the continuum, we ask folks to score the impact of a wide variety of conditions they encounter in the community, using a system that quantifies responses with rigor and discipline, then apply some good science. 

Understanding such things as whether broadband internet service is sufficient to handle weekend demand, how parking is at the grocery store one day versus another, or if their child’s teacher lives in town or commutes are typical examples of more than 50 scenario-based assessments we ask about. 

The perception responses to these scenarios create an index score based on the eye of the beholder, which leans toward one or another end of the continuum. Policymakers using our continuum system have the ability to drill down from community-wide to neighborhood or demographically-focused findings. 

Broader sample. We have already laid a baseline across several mountain resort communities in Colorado by gathering responses to the assessment from town managers and elected officials. Now, we’re moving into a significant second phase that will target new and old residents (full- and part-time), visitors (first-time and repeats), and specific professions to ensure that cross sections of the economy have provided their respective perceptions. The result will convey not only how town officials see their community positioned, but how constituents and visitors see it, from many different angles. 

Once a destination’s benchmark position on the continuum is identified, town officials can then go sector by sector through the economy to see whether each of those categories is in line with their goals and the goals of their constituents, and if not, see what to adjust, where, and how much. They can then retest, re-score, and watch their progress toward their goal, or identify where they’re missing the mark and be proactive rather than reactive. 

Potential adjustments. For example, residential respondents to the survey in Town A are stating that they have inadequate access to groceries on weekends due to crowding at the local grocery store—a common issue and one that would score that topic as tourism-centric from that group. The town may respond over time to incentivize grocery delivery mechanisms or the opening of a second grocery store closer to the more traditional residential neighborhoods. 

Such a move may prompt the older respondents to grade the issue of grocery access more toward the resident-centric side of the continuum, nudging the overall destination in that direction. 

Wanted: Systems

But why not use existing metrics and systems? Surely, there’s enough out there? In fact, our preliminary research indicates that there’s a bit too much data in some cases. 

Core metrics like occupancy, rates, revenue, taxes, visitation, skier days, and traffic are reliable and necessary to understanding business. But while those pure performance metrics can add context to other data points, they don’t describe the overarching social personality of a destination, which—if it’s considered at all—is commonly thought of in qualitative terms, not the systematic, quantitative approach we’re taking with NWCCOG and CAST. 

Quantifying qualitative data. The NWCCOG/CAST project is intended to look at a wider field of traditionally qualitative data, but to do it in such a way as to standardize the findings in a quantitative manner that can be reproduced for long-term benchmarking. As a community settles into a new structure with both disrupted and disrupting elements, understanding the perspective of all  members of the town’s “new ecosystem” is critical. 

Properly assessing that data will help ensure that elected officials have the right information to serve the needs and desires of their residential constituents, without losing sight of the needs of their commercial ones. With good data, officials can make sure that critical infrastructure is aligned with the centricity goals of the community. On the resident-centric side, that may include adequate broadband or improved off-street parking for delivery vehicles. On the tourism side, that may require a focus on systems that encourage remote parking and adequate first-responder capacity.

A difficult balance. Destination resorts underwent dramatic changes over the past three years. The forces that came together have accelerated the long-term and workforce housing crises and have fundamentally changed the sentiment of local residents toward the use case of their community. They have also brought in a new electorate that may or may not be dependent on the tourism economy. The result is a more forceful and organized message than before from local residents to their elected officials as they look to recapture their community. 

Town officials, therefore, are in the difficult position of having to find the balance between seemingly competing forces of core industry and the will of the electorate. Many destinations are addressing the call for greater resident-centricity by developing new master plans, codifying short-term rental restrictions, or shifting from destination marketing to destination management. Yet some are finding the pendulum has swung too far already.

To avoid this back and forth, it’s important for destinations to identify where they and their constituents believe they are on the continuum between tourist- and resident-centricity, find out where the community wants to be, and understand what specific steps are needed to get there. This high-stakes process is very dynamic, and can be emotional—but the outcome has long-term benefits.

Progress is a Process

The Insights Collective will report some answers in mid-2024 about where mountain destination travel is heading and how it finds balance between the needs of the economy and of the community. 

The halcyon days of a mountain community usually go back to “right after I moved here” or what it was like before “x” happened. Finding and maintaining the equilibrium that sustains that feeling is a huge undertaking and at the core of the roles of both the town leaders and their constituents. 

Clearly, pre-existing imbalances have been exacerbated since 2021, and the results have been, in some cases, consequential. 

Having the tools and systems to quantify the current and desired state of the community, as well as track progress through that evolution, is part of the cooperative process needed to “get it right.” We’re looking forward to the next stage of our work on this project to see where the mountain travel industry is headed and help individual destinations get there, each according to their own “centric” leanings. 

SAMMY Guest Editor Says...

Stacey Timmons Ehleringer, Sun Valley, Idaho 2023 SAMMY Leadership Award HonoreeSun Valley, both as a community and as a resort, was not exempt from the changes in the larger community dynamic that resulted from the pandemic. We experienced the same roller coaster other mountain communities have, including challenges with housing, staffing, and shifts in the community base. 

Unraveling the complexities of this new narrative requires more data and insight, as not all businesses or residents have been impacted similarly. 

Myself, along with many others across our communities, are in a unique position. We are dependent on and drivers of the tourism ecosystem, yet are also deeply embedded in our local community. Recently, the two have certainly felt at odds. Our children go to school here, we visit the same stores and restaurants, and vie for the same parking spaces as everyone else. These data points on the tourism-to-resident spectrum are not mutually exclusive, but are rather complexly intertwined. Tom is spot on regarding the need to balance driving responsible growth that promotes a thriving local community with continuing to make it a place that tourists and locals both want to and can afford to be. 

With change comes opportunity, and I have seen incredible opportunities arise in recent years. Enhancing our employee experience in response to these new challenges has been critical. Initiatives like prioritizing employee enrollment for our resort-operated daycare and summer camp, when local enrollment capacities had been exhausted with the influx of new residents, have been very well received. It gave our employees peace of mind knowing we understood these new barriers and were willing to navigate the challenges alongside them.

Communities and resorts will need to iterate their responses as the influx and outflux of residents continues to play out. There’s an opportunity to collectively share insights and learnings, and resources like Insights Collective are essential in helping pave the path forward for all of us.