By Charlie Lunan
Western mountain resorts are reporting summer occupancy figures that rival winter levels, according to DestiMetrics, which tracks reservation, occupancy and revenue data at resorts in Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming.
“Occupancy rates for summer 2015 (through July 31) reached 92.5 percent of occupancy rates for the winter of 2015-16, indicating nearly identical room utilization between the two seasons,” explained Tom Foley, operations director for DestiMetrics. “As we track occupancy figures that are likely to set another record in the summer of 2016, we’ll look for that gap between summer and winter occupancy to get even closer.”
In a year-over-year comparison to last year, overall occupancy for the summer climbed 7.4 percent and revenues rose 14.3 percent. The months of May and September are seeing the biggest bump in occupancy while both of those months, along with July, are enjoying the largest increases in revenues.
The report is welcomed news for many resorts, which for the past couple of years have been beefing up their summer offerings with everything from zips lines and alpine slides to better mountain biking trails in an effort to even the seasonality of their business.
“The summer and shoulder season months have clearly emerged as destination periods in their own right,” said Ralf Garrison, director of DestiMetrics. “These mountain resort communities are now positioned as bonafide year-round destinations when not so long ago they were viewed almost solely as ski towns.”
Still, while summer occupancy rates were strong and growing, resorts are still having to discount heavily to attract visitors. The summer average daily rate (ADR) for lodging stood at about 57 percent that of winter, Foley pointed out.
DestiMetrics tracks resort performance in mountain destinations, compiling forward-looking reservation data on a monthly basis and aggregating and reporting the results to subscribers at participating resorts. It derives its data from a sample of approximately 290 property management companies in 19 mountain destination communities, representing approximately 27,500 rooms.
