Summer tourism numbers appear to be similar to what they were this time last year in Durango despite inflation and increased gas prices.
According to the Durango Welcome Center, hotel and short-term rental occupancy was up 6% in May and down about 6% in June compared with last year.
“This would indicate that, so far, summer visitation numbers are consistent with last year and we are optimistic that we will have a healthy summer season,” said Rachel Welsh, spokeswoman with Visit Durango.
The tourism office does not receive occupancy data until the end of each month, so it is a little too early to make sweeping predictions, she said.
As a whole, gas prices have not had a large impact on tourism, but in-state visitors have increased this summer. For the months of May and June, 37% of Durango’s tourists were from Colorado, 11.6% were from Texas, 8.9% were from Arizona and 8.2% came from New Mexico.
Visitors from Texas have decreased almost 3% from last summer and in-state visitors have increased by nearly 9%.
“Thankfully, we are a drive-market destination, so if anything the gas prices have just decreased the visitor drive radius, increasing our in-state visitation,” Welsh said.
As a part of Visit Durango’s sustainable tourism efforts, the office does not market in the summer to prevent overtourism.
Last year, tourism made up 30% of La Plata County’s economy. In May and June, Welsh said the most visited day of the week had been Tuesday with 5% more visitors than the average daily visitor count. The average length of stay has been four days.
Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Durango Business Improvement District, said train ridership has been promising this summer. Last year, train ridership was the highest it has ever been, and this year appears to be on a similar pace.
Walsworth said the downtown ambassadors had more interactions in the month of June than they have ever had. The ambassadors count how many interactions they have walking along downtown Main Avenue. The BID also measures how many people enter the Durango Welcome Center.
In June, 16,473 people visited the Welcome Center. He said that is fewer than in 2021 but about 500 more than in 2019. (The BID is not using 2020 numbers because of the COVID-19 shutdown.)
Walsworth said he is not surprised more in-state residents are visiting Durango this year.
“People travel within Colorado to come down here to our corner of the state all the time,” he said. “And so whenever you look at where people are from, Colorado is usually No. 1 on the list.”
Walsworth said the lingering impacts of being cooped up during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic are a stronger driver on people’s desire to travel versus the high gas prices being a deterrent.
“There’s still built-up travel demand from being locked down in 2020 and being somewhat holed up in 2021,” he said. “But gas is way more expensive and so maybe you stay in-state, and why not?”
tbrown@durangoherald.com
