To keep up with latest tourism trends and predict what operations will look like in the future, the Breckenridge Tourism Office, Inntopia and various lodging companies collaborate to produce occupancy reports. According to the latest report — which is for August — room nights fell below August 2020 by about 6%.
Bill Wishowski, director of operations for the Breckenridge Tourism Office, said he has a few guesses for why these numbers dipped compared to last year.
“The thing that we found in August was that the volume of last-minute bookings that took place in 2021 did not match up what happened in 2020 and 2019,” he said. “That’s why occupancy as a percentage was less this year than say maybe last year or even in 2019. That was something that the industry saw as a whole, too.”
Wishowski said he wasn’t necessarily surprised by this dip, especially considering the difference in travel trends last year compared to this year.
“(It’s) not too surprising if you consider a couple of environments: Last year at this time, things were opening up, fall was going on — it was a gorgeous fall — so things were opening up and people were starting to travel,” he said. “There was a lot of pent-up demand. So the future was bright in a sense. This year now with the delta variant, it threw some waves in, so it slowed down the booking process to some degree and then I think it impacted some of the groups that might have been booking last minute.”
Not only that, but Wishowski noted that people were still working remotely and kids were learning virtually. This year is largely different as more people return to work in the office and kids are back attending school in person.
Matt Windt, executive vice president of marketing and communications for Gravity Haus, said that though occupancy was roughly flat year over year for August, the company still reported a strong month, largely due to the return of small group business and guest bookings farther out in advance. Windt said in an email that this resulted in a “healthy” average daily rate increase for the property.
Similar trends are happening at The Lodge at Breckenridge, too. According to General Manager Rhonda Wilson, the lodging property’s occupancy was slightly down in August, but, overall, the property has exceeded its budgeted revenue every month this summer by about $60,000. The property has exceeded its revenue compared to last year by about $1 million so far.
Wilson attributes this to the property’s strong average daily rate, which she said is sitting $65…
Read More: Latest report shows Breckenridge occupancy nights in August fell 6%