{"id":794871,"date":"2019-04-16T15:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/western-mountain-destinations-summit-lodging-properties-closing-out-another-banner-season\/"},"modified":"2019-04-17T08:28:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T14:28:54","slug":"western-mountain-destinations-summit-lodging-properties-closing-out-another-banner-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/western-mountain-destinations-summit-lodging-properties-closing-out-another-banner-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Western mountain destinations, Summit lodging properties closing out another banner season"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Fireside Inn Bed & Breckenridge in Breckenridge, shown in this Summit Daily file photo, had a great winter with business up an estimated %6, said owner Andy Harris. Overall, lodging at western mountain destinations is closing in on another record-setting winter season.<\/strong>
Heather Jarvis \/ hjarvis@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lodging at western mountain destinations is closing in on its eighth straight year of record-setting revenue as attention starts to shift to spring\u2019s off-season and summer tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a very good year,\u201d said Andy Harris, who owns the Fireside Inn Bed & Breakfast<\/a> in Breckenridge with his wife Niki.<\/p>\n

Like so many others, Harris has noticed a nice uptick in business for the 2018-19 ski season. He said that traffic at the inn has started to die down after the busy winter, but he estimated they\u2019ve seen a 6% increase \u201cacross the board\u201d at the cozy, family-run inn for the winter season.<\/p>\n

And if you ask the people who track the data across hundreds of western mountain destinations, the question isn\u2019t whether they\u2019ll set another seasonal record, it\u2019s by how much and if the record, or records, will be in occupancy, room rate, revenue or all of the above.<\/p>\n

A strong report from March has boosted the likelihood of another seasonal record for mountain western destinations with the month\u2019s occupancy up 7.4 percent over March 2018 and the average daily rate up 4.4 percent.<\/p>\n

These two factors have combined to produce \u201ca formidable\u201d 12.1 percent increase in aggregated revenues, according to the latest DestiMetrics market briefing released by Inntopia, which tracks this data.<\/p>\n

In the company\u2019s briefing, the firm was \u201cconfident\u201d of another record winter, saying that the increase in aggregated actual occupancy for the full six-month season, as well average daily rate, have shaped a nice 6.7% bump in year-to-date revenue, all but ensuring an eighth consecutive record-setting season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the \u2018perfect storm\u2019 situation this season with strong and consistent snowfall coupled with a continued strong economy and optimistic consumers,\u201d explained Tom Foley, the company\u2019s senior vice president of business operations and analytics, in a statement. \u201cIt is rare to get that combination in a single season and with the reality of an extended season at many destinations, we expect the final results to be even stronger with another month to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The figures released by Inntopia are based on a sample of nearly 300 participating western property management companies, including some in Summit County, and the report mirrors local trends.<\/p>\n

In Frisco, the town\u2019s monthly sales tax reports have shown growing revenues across the town\u2019s lodging sector. Overall, Frisco lodging was up more than 12 percent in January and February, while the subcategory of hotels and inns was up over 10 percent. That continues a trend of growth dating back to at least 2014.<\/p>\n

The Breckenridge Tourism Office has seen it, too. In Breckenridge, as of March 31, the winter season spanning November through April has seen occupancy rise 7% and revenue up 4% year-over-year, season-over-season, according to figures provided by Austyn Dineen, the tourim office\u2019s public relations director.<\/p>\n

With numbers like that, it\u2019s no wonder so many hotel projects are taking shape in Summit County right now. In Silverthorne, work is progressing on The Padd<\/a>, the Element Hotel<\/a> and yet another hotel scheduled for Fourth Street Crossing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just down the road, Vail Resorts recently sold a Keystone parking lot<\/a> to developers planning a hotel for the property. That sale follows another agreement, in which a new hotel<\/a> is going up on land previously owned by Vail Resorts at the base of Peak 8 in Breckenridge.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just a sample of some of the hotel projects designed to address the growing lodging needs in Summit County, which could be even greater this year, as one of the county\u2019s premiere ski resorts looks to extend its season.<\/p>\n

Right now, it\u2019s not exactly clear how an elongated season at Breckenridge Ski Resort might affect late-season lodging, which typically falls off in April and May when the nearby ski resorts start to close.<\/p>\n

So far, Breckenridge hasn\u2019t seen any significant shifts due to the resort\u2019s plans to run lifts through the Memorial Day weekend, said Lucy Kay, president and CEO of the Breckenridge Tourism Office, in a recent conversation with town leaders.<\/p>\n

That might change in the coming months, she said, \u201cbut we\u2019re kind of thinking it could be business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, Kay said she expects the number of businesses closing for the off-season to be \u201ccomparable\u201d to previous years, though the ones that do decide to stay open might see a boost in traffic.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens in the next couple months, this winter will go down as one of the best in the books so far for lodging at western mountain destinations, including Summit County.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, the two \u2018wild cards\u2019 of the winter season \u2014 weather and the economy \u2014 are what shaped the 2018-19 season,\u201d Foley said. \u201cEven though we had a couple of wobbles in the economy during the winter months, abundant snowfall picked up the slack occasionally and the overall economic strength helped assure that we\u2019ll be setting a few records, though we will have to wait until the end of April to know just what they will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fireside Inn Bed & Breckenridge in Breckenridge, shown in this Summit Daily file photo, had a great winter with business up an estimated %6, said owner Andy Harris. Overall, lodging at western mountain destinations is closing in on another record-setting winter season.Heather Jarvis \/ hjarvis@summitdaily.com Lodging at western mountain destinations is closing in on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-794871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 15:46:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}