Durango hasn’t seen an especially thriving tourism season so far this summer, by some metrics – but there’s no cause for economic panic, Tim Walsworth, Business Improvement District executive director, said.
“There might not be as many people as normal, but nothing majorly alarming (was seen) through the end of June,” he said.
Hotel occupancy has fallen around 1 to 2 percentage points week-over-week this summer compared with the same weeks last year, he said. But BID’s Downtown Ambassador Program, which tracks how many visitor/ambassador interactions occur per hour, has been “right on track,” suggesting that foot traffic downtown hasn’t taken too much of a dive since last year.
Downtown hotel occupancy for the week of June 21-27 this year was at 85.1% compared with 87.7% in the same period last year, Walsworth said – roughly 500 fewer room nights across all hotels in the downtown zone.
“That’s an indicator that we’re not off a lot, but it is a little slower, right?” he said.
Local businesses reported mixed impressions of this summer’s tourism health.
Kris Oyler, co-founder and CEO of Peak Food and Beverage, which operates Steamworks Brewing Co., El Moro Spirits and Tavern and HomeSlice Pizza, said June sales were up 4% across all three restaurants; but July sales have been down 4½% so far compared with last year.
Cream Bean Berry owner Katie Burford reported a similar pattern, with June numbers sitting in a more normal zone for this time of year followed by a 10% sales decrease in the first half of July – even with the Fourth of July marking the shop’s heaviest traffic day to date.
“I worry about the economic headwinds we’re facing this season with the drought, high gas prices and inflation,” she wrote in an email to The Durango Herald. “But the support of locals has certainly helped keep us going.”
Michiko Burns, owner of Durango Olive Oil Co., which closed its brick-and-mortar shop at the end of June, said a lack of foot traffic near the Main Mall, where the shop was located, was part of what made her decide to not renew her lease for another year, among other reasons.
“(I’ve been) seeing how far down tourism has gone, and yesterday was a prime example,” she said in an interview with the Herald in late June. “Middle of the day, I’m walking outside, I can count up to a dozen parking spots. It looks like fall out there. It’s really kind of scary.”
Burns now sells the shop’s products online.
Several of the businesses interviewed for this story said their perception is that high gas prices in the region and nearby fires have made some hopeful visitors forego trips to Durango this summer.
That is also a thought on Walsworth’s mind.
“When the news shows flames and giant smoke columns, I’m sure that does scare some people (away) from coming,” he said. “… Certainly, gas prices have remained high for months now … we wish they could be a little lower, like they are in other parts of the country, but they’re not.”
Gas prices have consistently remained above $4 per gallon throughout La Plata County, despite dipping down to around $3.60 in more metropolitan parts of the state in recent weeks.
Jeff Johnson, general manager of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, said ridership is down about 2% to 4% year-to-date, and that scheduling patterns are less predictable than usual this summer. Specifically, customers are booking their trips less far out than usual, he said.
He attributes that shift to riders being nervous about smoke in the area and an increasingly untenable and unpredictable economy making customers unable to predict ahead of time when they’ll be able to afford an activity like a trip on the train.
Riders making bookings closer to the time of their trip than usual means early data can be misleading, he said.
“Our futures were trending down quite a bit, but people are moving to more close-in booking, and we’re finding ridership in the actuals are actually doing much better than the futures would have indicated initially,” he said.
Some businesses have reported rising sales rates this summer, including The Leland House and Lola’s Patio at the Leland House, also known as Lola’s Place. Tonya Ensign, who owns both businesses, said numbers are up this June compared with last. She did not share specific percentages.
“Our June numbers were higher than last June, so that’s one metric that we look at, but it’s hard to know if that’s pervasive, because every year we’ve grown,” she said. “The hotel has grown every year, and Lola’s grew way, way faster than we ever expected.”
Durango-La Plata County Airport Aviation Director Tony Vicari reported some modestly positive air travel findings, with overall passenger traffic reported to be up around 13% compared with 2025, and up 15% for June specifically.
It can be difficult to completely separate travel data by locals and tourists, he said, but data show that in June of this year, 57% of traffic was from outside the region, up from 53% last year, indicating a generally strong visitation month.
One metric the airport uses to get a gauge on how many out-of-towners are coming through is the number of rental cars purchased. Vicari said rental car contract days are up a modest 3% as of May, but that full rental car data for June was not yet available as of July 13, making a summertime travel comparison using that data difficult.
“Looking at visitors versus locals, it looks like we’re seeing pretty strong visitation in the early summer period,” he said. “There are some mixed signals – rental car activity is a little more subdued – but overall the numbers lean toward relatively strong activity early in the season.”
Walsworth said despite some data pointing toward a slow start to this year’s summer tourism season, he has hope rates will tick up moving into August.
“I’m always optimistic. I’m a glass‑is‑half‑full kind of guy, because I love this town and our area, downtown specifically,” he said. “My hope would be that we would, at the very least, continue with just a small drop … (And) maybe we’ll see a nice surge of visitors in the last half of summer.”
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