{"id":805191,"date":"2020-03-12T20:42:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T02:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=380389"},"modified":"2020-03-12T20:42:53","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T02:42:53","slug":"summit-county-tourism-economy-could-face-a-major-hit-from-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-county-tourism-economy-could-face-a-major-hit-from-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit County tourism economy could face a major hit from coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Breckenridge Ski Resort\u2019s Peak 8 on Thursday, March 12. On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis encouraged visitors to stay away from the High Country in an effort to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 On Wednesday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis recommended those 60 and older avoid traveling to the High Country<\/a>, stoking fears in the tourism sector that spring break could be a bust.<\/p>\n

Polis noted that the virus was likely to disproportionately affect the state\u2019s resort communities and recommended that individuals 60 and older or with other health issues limit their travel to the mountains, where 25 of the state\u2019s 49 presumptive positive cases are located<\/a>, primarily in Eagle in Pitkin counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, we can confirm community spread in the High Country of Colorado,\u201d Polis said Wednesday. \u201c\u2026 It appears the virus will be disproportionately hitting our resort and mountain communities first. That doesn\u2019t mean it will hit our resort and mountain communities exclusively, but it will hit those communities first based on the numbers we\u2019re seeing. Of course we\u2019re concerned about people traveling back and forth between population centers and those communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The travel warning has local business owners concerned about losing visitors during what it typically one of the busiest times of year.<\/p>\n

Lucy Kay, president and CEO of the Breckenridge Tourism Office, spoke to Breckenridge Town Council on Tuesday to fill members in on the COVID-19 impact in Breckenridge from a business perspective. She said four groups have pulled out of business conferences scheduled in Breckenridge, a revenue loss of between $300,000 and $500,000. She said impacts to \u201cfree independent travel\u201d businesses, such as hotels, have been fairly minor so far. <\/p>\n

Kay explained that the Breckenridge Tourism Office has paused some marketing efforts for now, but that they plan to \u201cun-pause\u201d some paid media advertising in the summer and fall, depending on the public health situation at that time. Kay explained that the Tourism Office might target its campaigns toward the drive market as people become more concerned about airline travel. She added that more people from the Front Range might cancel trips elsewhere and travel locally, which could benefit Summit County.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of our expectation going forward is we\u2019re going to have some impact on business but will see more car traffic,\u201d Kay said. <\/p>\n

Council member Wendy Wolfe gave suggestions for informing resident and visitors about the current status of the virus in Colorado, including directing people to additional information on the government\u2019s website and adding information to the front page of the Tourism Office website.<\/p>\n

Wolfe also pointed out that airline companies have been flexible in cancellation policies and said that it might be in the town\u2019s best interest for local hospitality businesses to follow suit. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not changing our cancellation policies \u2026 we might be inviting people to come and take the chance,\u201d Wolfe said.<\/p>\n

Council member Gary Gallagher stressed the importance of keeping the community safe and minimizing the likelihood of community exposure and spread of the virus.   <\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is if the issue arises here, it\u2019s almost too late,\u201d Gallagher said about community exposure.<\/p>\n

Assistant Breckenridge Town Manager Shannon Haynes added in a later conversation that town officials are taking steps to mitigate the spread of the virus as well as to plan for the possibility of the progression of the virus.<\/p>\n

Summit County ski areas, which have posted public notices<\/a> about the virus, have stressed that they\u2019re open for business \u2014 a sentiment that was echoed by Summit County Commissioner Elisabeth Lawrence at a press conference about coronavirus last week.<\/p>\n

Adrienne Isaac, director of marketing and communications for the National Ski Areas Association, wrote in an email that the association collects skier visit numbers at the end of the season and that while it\u2019s still too early to tell whether the virus is having an affect on skier numbers, snow is consistently the primary factor driving skier visits.<\/p>\n

Blair McGary, executive director of the Summit County Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber intends to send a \u201cbalanced\u201d message to residents and visitors. <\/p>\n

McGary said that at this point in time, the chamber isn\u2019t expecting less business and is running business as usual unless it is advised otherwise by health officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, we\u2019re really just encouraging the community to exercise prudence and just really be prepared,\u201d McGary said. \u201cWe recognize that March is a really important time in our community \u2026 but the financial impact of this will not be unique to Summit County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sawyer D\u2019Argonne contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Breckenridge Ski Resort\u2019s Peak 8 on Thursday, March 12. On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis encouraged visitors to stay away from the High Country in an effort to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 On Wednesday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis recommended those 60 and older avoid traveling to the High […]<\/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-805191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 08:46:15","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\/805191","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=805191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}