Tourism expert Tom Foley describes his outlook for summer travel in destinations like Colorado as “cautiously optimistic” — a term to describe the combination of rising revenues and wavering summer bookings.

For skiers, winter travel plans can be largely reliant on snowfall — which helps to explain why Colorado’s winter tourism season had a weaker ending than expected.

Data from 17 locations spread across seven western states — Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho — show mountain resort destinations faced a challenging season for occupancy this past winter, according to data from Inntopia’s DestiMetrics monthly market briefing.

Seasonal occupancy dipped a slight 0.3% during the winter tourism season — which started strong and ended with weaker visitation than the year before as snowfall dwindled and tariff anxiety rose. Because the average daily rate saw an increase of 1.9%, however, revenue gain was able to offset lower visitation numbers to deliver a 1.6% gain in revenues despite the drop in visitation.

While this trend veers away from the stronger growth observed in the past few years, it is not unlike what western mountain destinations could likely see this summer. Though the factors driving summer travel typically aren’t as volatile as the winter weather, today’s political policy news has shifted consumer confidence and weakened booking numbers in western mountain destinations.

Summer bookings falter, but finances are stable for now

As proven by a recent drop in booking pace for the warmer months, consumer confidence has only continued to decay.

According to Tom Foley, senior vice president of Business Intelligence for Inntopia and author of the market briefing report, occupancy for the summer season from May through October is “essentially flat compared to last year at this time” with the exception of a meager 0.1% increase as of April 30. The increase comes as the April booking pace for summer arrivals dipped for the fifth consecutive month — down 3.2%.

“The economic drama that launched in January and looks to continue for the foreseeable future is definitely impacting summer travel plans,” Foley wrote in the report.

Average daily rates, on the other hand, are up 3.1% for the season with increases in all six months.

“The ‘optimistic’ part is coming from the fact that there seems to be — for at least those reservations that are booking — some tolerance for a rate increase that is higher than the national inflation rate,” Foley said. “With inflation at 2.3% but a higher (average daily rate), that tells us that there is some price tolerance out there … that gives us some cautious optimism.”

As he pointed out, the majority of tourism lost in the mountain resorts and hotels came from the same pricing tier. Among those purchasing economy (up to $250 per night), moderate ($251 to $400 per night) and luxury (over $400 per night) accommodations, both the moderate and luxury categories appear to be performing well heading into the summer months while bookings for the economy-priced sector are faltering.

Though this kind of shift isn’t unusual, Foley said the reason behind it isn’t yet clear. On one hand, customers who typically select the economy tier could be booking higher-end properties thanks to lower pricing in mountain destinations during the summer. On the other hand, those same customers could simply be choosing to “sit this one out” as they deal with financial uncertainty.

“At the end of the day, at least from the lodging perspective, occupancy isn’t the bottom line the way revenue is,” he said. “There are many different ways to get your revenue, and if occupancy stays flat but average daily rate stays up 3.5%, that’s OK for lodgers.”

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about non-lodging businesses that also rely on tourism for revenue.

“There’s a corollary to that about Main Street and non-lodging suppliers — people who own art galleries and widget shops and food and drink and so forth — because if there are fewer people staying overnight, there are, in all likelihood, some fewer number of people on Main Street spending money in the broader economy outside of the lodging sector,” Foley said. “So it’s a double-sided coin. … It can be painful for the balance of the town if occupancy doesn’t pick up.”

Less water recreation, less visitors

One way that Colorado attracts tourists to its rural mountain destinations during the summer is through its water recreation opportunities. When the region’s snowpack is faltering and the river runs low, however, rafters and kayakers may look elsewhere for their summer plans.

“Drought conditions have a huge impact on the revenue being generated by the town. Boat rentals go down, there aren’t people renting and wanting to stay on the lake because the lake is

In fact 100 yards out from the shoreline,” Foley said. “Those are (main) revenue generators during the summer.”

Two months ago, Colorado’s snowpack was 93% of normal. Fast forward to May 21, and the statewide snowpack now sits at around 58% of normal, according to Natural Resources Conservation Services Snow Survey Supervisor Brian Domonkos.

Precipitation in April, being drier than normal despite being one of Colorado’s wetter months, was 44% below normal, which looks bad for Colorado’s broader water picture and has contributed to an ongoing drought on the Western Slope.

“It always comes down to two wildcards: economy and weather,” Foley said, “and it doesn’t matter whether it’s summer or winter — those are the two things at play.”

The potential for smoke and wildfires risk can also play a significant role in tourism to Colorado. Although the 2025 wildfire outlook and preparedness plan from Colorado’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control predicts “normal fire potential” through August for that state, drought conditions on the Western Slope only exacerbates that potential.

“During the summer we have a couple of resources that we use to track smoke plumes as they travel around the west and the northeast,” Foley said. “Even though it didn’t have fires last year, it had a ton of smoke coming down from Quebec and Ontario, and those things have a huge impact on whether or not people are willing to go somewhere.”

A new economic pandemic: Tariff fears keep travelers at home

The implementation of stiff tariffs against 75 countries in addition to the blanket 10% tariffs on all imported goods earlier in March was blamed for recent steep losses in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor’s 500, where many consumers have their 401k and IRA accounts, according to Inntopia’s May report. The losses are having “a profound impact on consumers” by bringing sentiment to near-record lows.

“Consumers are bracing for what every analyst out there is telling them is going to be higher prices starting in May, as the supply that was purchased pre-pandemic is now working its way out of the consumer chain and we’re starting to now put things on shelves that we’ve bought since the tariffs,” Foley said.

The Consumer Confidence Index released by the Conference Board and the Consumer Sentiment Index from the University of Michigan declined significantly in April, with the first dropping for the fifth consecutive month by roughly 7.9% — its lowest point since May 2020, according to Foley’s report. The Consumer Sentiment Index is now at a low of 52.8%.

“These things take a long time to trickle down to consumers, so I would expect that it would take a long time for any kind of goodwill or positive response to show up again,” he said, adding that consumer pessimism hasn’t changed much since it began to plummet a couple months ago.

As of May 6, summer arrivals from Canada are down over 45% compared to this time last year, “mainly due to a strong negative response from Canadians to U.S. trade policy and political commentary,” Foley wrote. Travelers from Western Europe have brought bookings down 30%.

Mexico, on the other hand, is up a dramatic 33.3% for the summer due to a combination of easing trade policy and the weakening of the U.S. dollar, which makes travel to the U.S. more affordable.

“As Canadians and Europeans step back in a big way, there is an opportunity to capture more domestic visitors who have indicated they are scaling back international travel plans — but until financial stability returns and consumer confidence rises, it is likely to be an interesting, and potentially challenging summer for mountain destinations,” Foley wrote in the report.