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Tag: Travel and Tourism Report

Colorado’s ‘Small but Mighty’ International Tourists: A Powerful Economic Force

International visitors have historically represented nearly 2 percent of overall visitors to Colorado, but they pack a punch: The spending of the international tourist is about 8 percent of the overall tourist spending for the state. 

“We call them the ‘small but mighty crowd,’” says Andrea Blankenship, deputy director of international sales, Colorado Tourism Office (CTO). “Their economic impact is great. They stay longer, they’re staying in hotels, they’re shopping, they’re spending money at restaurants.” 

Many international visitors come to visit national parks in multiple states or take “the great American road trip,” she adds. “Our job is to keep them in Colorado.”  

READ: How Aspen Groves Are Driving Economic Growth in Colorado’s Mountain Communities

Between 2009 and 2019, the number of international visitors to Colorado increased by 62 percent, as domestic traffic grew by 46 percent, according to CTO data. Then the pandemic all but slammed the door shut on international tourism in 2020. After peaking at a little more than 1 million, international visitors to Colorado plummeted to 275,000 in 2020 and 340,000, primarily from Mexico, in 2021. 

In 2022, that number more than doubled to about 745,000, but was still down 28 percent from 2019. Average spend per international visitor per trip, previously about $1,800, bottomed out at $1,100 in 2020 before recovering to $1,500 last year. 

Blankenship says she hopes international traffic hits pre-pandemic levels in 2023, then grows from there. “My goal by 2025 is for international to be 10 percent of the overall tourism spend,” she says. 

In order, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Canada and Germany are the state’s top feeder markets, and they all travel differently. Mexican nationals have long gravitated to Vail during the winter, Blankenship says. Canadians tend to behave more like domestic travelers, she adds, “and do quick hits for five days and visit all sorts of different places in the state.” 

Europeans are “primarily summer visitors, and each market has a different interest. The U.K., they want to really be like a local,” Blankenship says. “[Germans] are trying to discover things that nobody else has ever found. The French love our southwest corner. 

READ: A Burgeoning Van Life — How Colorado Became a Hotspot for Campervan Enthusiasts

“The Australian visitor, they’re a remarkable visitor because they come for three or four weeks at a time. You don’t see that in any other market,” Blankenship says, noting that they are the only overseas market split evenly between summer and winter.

It follows that Telluride sometimes feels like a satellite of Sydney. “Australians were running into friends of theirs here,” laughs Tom Watkinson, director of communications for Visit Telluride. “Our Aussie ski instructor was like, ‘Is the whole country here? What’s going on?’” 

As international tourism continues to recover, Australia remains front and center for Visit Telluride. “I was in Australia last year with the Colorado Tourism Office, going around to six cities in nine days, meeting both the travel trade and media,” Watkinson says. “Every time I opened my mouth, everybody’s eyes lit up, like, ‘Oh my god, you’re not Australian!’ They were the second-most locked down in the world. They were very excited to see me and hear me. The country was chomping at the bit to start traveling.” 

With a population of 26 million, Australia has less than half the people of the U.K. or Germany, but Watkinson says it’s a strategic target, noting, “We’re just being super conservative about where we’re going and where we’re spending our money.” 

It’s not just Telluride. Tourism organizations in Denver, Durango, Alamosa, Aspen and elsewhere have all upped their international marketing budgets in 2023, or at least bumped them back to pre-pandemic levels. 

While tour operators are a big focus of the state’s efforts, the CTO has increasingly targeted consumers since 2009. “We actually changed from 1 or 2 percent of our budget at that time in consumer advertising, and now it’s a quarter of our budget,” Blankenship says, noting that the Colorado Tourism Office won $2.8 million of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. “That’s given us an extra push that we’ve put strictly into consumer promotion.” 

It makes sense: Colorado competes with major mountain destinations like the Swiss Alps and the Canadian Rockies. “For those who know us, Colorado’s always been a bucket list destination,” Blankenship says. 

It also helps that the CTO didn’t go dark in international markets during the pandemic. “We kept the lights on,” Blankenship says. “The market has gotten really busy, with the big destinations, the New Yorks, the Floridas, the Californias of the world coming back in, but people haven’t forgotten that we’re there. 

“We’re sitting on a goldmine. People want the wide-open spaces, they want the nature. Coloradans are also very authentic people, and they also want a welcoming, very authentic experience, and that is what Colorado is really good at.”  

 

Denver-based writer Eric Peterson is the author of Frommer’s Colorado, Frommer’s Montana & Wyoming, Frommer’s Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and the Ramble series of guidebooks, featuring first-person travelogues covering everything from atomic landmarks in New Mexico to celebrity gone wrong in Hollywood. Peterson has also recently written about backpacking in Yosemite, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone and downhill skiing in Colorado for such publications as Denver’s Westword and The New York Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected]

Denver International Airport (DIA) is now the Third-busiest Airport in the World

At times overshadowed by conspiracy theories and punchlines about the since-scrapped automated baggage system, Denver International Airport hit an inarguable zenith during the pandemic, jumping from the 16th-busiest airport worldwide in terms of total passengers in 2019 to the eighth-busiest in 2020. 

In 2021, the ascent continued: DIA was the third-busiest airport on Earth with 58.8 million passengers, a position it maintained midway through 2022. The busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, saw about 76 million passengers, followed by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with 62.5 million. 

“That’s the highest Denver has ever ranked,” says Laura Jackson, vice president of air service development at DIA. “In 2021, we were the largest airport for United, Frontier and Southwest. To my knowledge, that’s never happened, where one airport was the largest station for three major carriers.” 

There’s a pandemic-related asterisk: “Domestic travel has led the recovery, particularly in 2021 when borders remained closed. Prior to COVID, 95 percent of our traffic was domestic. At the core of the airport, we’re domestic and we’re serving domestic travel.” 

DIA

Jackson says that “outsized demand for leisure travel and outsized demand for travel to places that have access to wide-open spaces where you could social distance” was another catalyst for the ranking.  

READ — Plains tourism pitch: Head east for peace, quiet and solitude

Can DIA maintain its lofty global ranking as a new normalcy emerges? Jackson is bullish. “The airport was built for 50 million annual passengers, so we were already exceeding that volume for several years going into the pandemic. We already had expansion plans in place to absorb the volume with the concourse expansion plan, building out new gates, and the Great Hall renovation.”

Jackson says the 2022 forecast of 70 million passengers could top the previous high-water mark of 69 million in 2019. Look for more high-water marks to follow. “Our strategic plan, Vision 100, is preparing us to serve 100 million passengers, which we expect to happen in the next 10 years, probably early 2030s based on our projections,” she says. 

“Airlines follow two things: people and their money,” says Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research Group, a strategic research firm for the travel industry in San Francisco. “As Denver has attracted more people, airlines have responded by bulking up their flights at DIA.” 

READ — Colorado is Seeing More Inbound Moves in 2022 Than Most Other States in the U.S.

The airport’s efficiency supports those decisions, he adds. “In San Francisco or Newark, you can’t have airplanes arriving and departing at the same time on parallel runways because you’re too close together. Denver was designed with airline hub operations in mind. Importantly, it has enough land so that if it needs to add more runways, it has the physical space to do so.”  

Harteveldt says he sees a creative, flexible approach that works more often than not. “It’s not always whipped cream and strawberries at DIA—sometimes, the milk is curdled—but DIA works very, very well. Airlines stay at DIA because not only does it function well operationally, but economically the airport works well with airlines, too,” he says. 

DIA

“We also have to acknowledge that the airline world today is not a normal operating environment,” Harteveldt says. “Not all of the airlines have reinstated all of the routes on their route networks before COVID. There are more than 50 cities in the U.S. that have lost or are losing their airline service.” 

Harteveldt says the recovery of international traffic—traditionally about 25 percent of passengers, but closer to 15 percent in 2020 and 2021—will likely benefit other airports more than it will DIA. 

“Denver’s place as number three is very impressive,” he says. “What will be impressive to me if it is able to maintain that position as other large hub airports see service reinstated. Will Denver be able to work with its airlines to regrow their route networks faster than other airlines at other hubs?” Harteveldt asks. 

“In this high fuel cost environment—and high pilot cost environment—the airlines that are operating at DIA look at their financial results of their flights,” Harteveldt says. “Obviously, it’s not responsible for the price of fuel, it’s not responsible for the pilot shortage, it’s not responsible for COVID. DIA can do a lot to make itself as cost-efficient as an airport as possible, as user-friendly to the airlines and passengers as possible, but ultimately Denver’s fate is determined by the airlines.” 

That said, the airlines are building on their already impressive operations at DIA. Chicago-based United Airlines started flying into Denver in 1937 and now has more flights to more destinations than any other carrier at DIA. The company employs about 7,000 people in Denver, including 1,000 at its Flight Training Center, touted as the world’s largest. 

“Denver’s central location in the U.S. allows us to serve as a key hub for United, and in fact, we are one of our company’s fastest growing hubs,” says Matt Miller, United’s vice president for airport operations in Denver. “For Coloradans, United offers local travelers the most comprehensive global route network and is the Mile High City’s most reliable airline—with more on-time departures than any other major carrier for six years running. “ 

Miller says about 60 percent of United’s traffic at Denver International Airport is tied to connecting flights, but the location also makes it an ideal conduit to the slopes. “We have the most daily seats to ski destinations of any domestic airline, making us the airline industry’s gateway to skiing,” he says. 

READ — Why Colorado? Come for the Mountains, Stay for the Culture

Expanding to DIA in 2006, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has about 5,000 employees based in Denver—“and we’re continuing to grow that number,” says Jason Van Eaton, senior vice president of real estate and government affairs and executive ambassador to Colorado for Southwest.  

Fresh off ribbon-cutting at a new $100 million maintenance hangar at DIA in March, Southwest opened 16 gates at the airport in May, giving it 40—more than any other airport on its map. “The real story around growth is in Denver. We have been growing by leaps and bounds in this market. It’s either our largest or close to our largest market in any given month.” 

DIA emerged as Southwest’s busiest airport as social distancing became the norm in 2020. “People were really trying to spread out. We saw our traffic really focus on people going to the beach and people going to the mountains,” Van Eaton says. “In September, we’ll be at 275 daily departures to 90 destinations. We only serve about 120 total, so that puts it in perspective of just how much of our network you can reach from Denver.” 

Van Eaton credits leaders like former Denver Mayor Federico Peña for their forward-thinking approach in the 1980s. “The city was visionary when they built DIA,” he says. “An airport is an economic engine in every city that it’s in. When you have an economic engine that can continue to grow to meet the demands of the city, you have something special—and that’s what Denver has.” 

Plains tourism pitch: Head east for peace, quiet and solitude

Getting away from it all has gotten increasingly difficult in Colorado’s high country. 

Heading west, I-70 is prone to traffic snarls, Vail and Breckenridge are the busiest ski resorts in the U.S., and lodging and lift ticket prices are sky-high. 

Then there are the great outdoors. Campgrounds in the mountains are at capacity and some primitive areas have been overrun to the point of closure. Trailhead parking fills up in the early hours. 

Go east, and the number of tourists per acre plummets drastically. An estimated 200,000 people visit Pawnee National Grassland and Comanche National Grassland in Colorado in a given year, which total more than 600,000 acres between them. Meanwhile, the 266,000-acre Rocky Mountain National Park had 4.4 million visitors in 2021. 

Run the numbers, and there are probably about 50 times more tourists per acre in Rocky Mountain National Park than there are in Comanche National Grassland. 

And that’s the crux of the plains tourism pitch: Want peace, quiet, and nobody else around? We’ve got it. 

Carrizo Canyon Lamar Colorado Creek 1600x800

Marilee Johnson, director of the Sterling Tourist Information Center for Logan County in northeastern Colorado, came up with a new tagline on a road trip about four years ago: Free Range Tourism. 

“Our tourism is the opposite of a tourist trap, so to speak,” she says. “You don’t stand in line and there are no traffic jams.

The traffic on the ExploreSterling.com website jumped by 300% in 2020 as lodging tax revenue declined by 6%, a victory in Johnson’s view. “We did fare better than the statewide figures and the national figures,” she says. “When the pandemic hit, that almost worked to our advantage, tourism-wise, because we targeted the Front Range.” 

In 2021, lodging tax receipts jumped by 22%. “People were looking to get outdoors and out in open spaces, so we pushed that in 2020 and continued that last year. Now we are expanding that” says Johnson. 

“We have, of course, a little bit different view on attracting tourists than other places,” she adds. “In Estes Park, they’re trying to figure out ways to manage all those tourists. Here we are, like, ‘Come! Come here!’” 

The strategy: doubling down on digital advertising by expanding to adjacent states and developing content for the TravelStorys app. 

Full,moon,rise,over,prairie, ,pawnee,national,grassland,in

The retired chief of interpretation at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, Rick Wallner is board president of the Canyons & Plains of Southeast Colorado Regional Heritage Taskforce.  

Wallner says tourism in the area is “recovering and in some cases bouncing back really good,” citing increases in lodging tax revenues in 2022 after down years in 2020 and 2021. “We’re starting to see more people discover this part of Colorado. The Colorado Tourism Office has been really good working with us and pushing this area of Colorado. We’re still looking for visitors, whereas some areas of Colorado are overrun with visitors and just can’t support the visitation they have now. 

Down here, you can go out and have the place to yourself—and really get away from it all,” he adds. “We have places like Picketwire Canyonlands, Picture Canyon and Carrizo Canyon that are really beautiful. People always think of the plains as flat, nothing, but we have some really pretty canyon country down here.” 

Wallner says heritage tourism is another regional draw with Bent’s Old Fort, Sand Creek Massacre, and newly minted Amache national historic sites. In 2021, Canyons & Plains promoted the 200th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail.  

But some other strategies are undeniably forward-looking: The organization recently commissioned artists to create works depicting local history and landmarks. Canyons & Plains is now promoting the region with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of the artworks. 

“Obviously, the ultimate goal is economic development, economic diversity,” Wallner says. “The southeast part of Colorado isn’t exactly booming economically, and this is a way to improve the economies, to bring in tourism dollars to southeast Colorado, and that’s certainly the pitch we make when we go out to county commissioners or lodging tax boards for support.” 

Tourism Distancing Travel Tourism Report
 Photographer: Ben Lehman, Lehman Images

VistaWorks, a Buena Vista-based destination management and marketing firm, is the agency of record for the Prowers County Lodging Tax Board. The staff spent several days on an immersion trip after finalizing the contract in 2019. 

“What we found about this region is: It’s so peaceful,” says Lindsay Diamond, chief storyteller at VistaWorks. “There are sunflower fields and tall green grasses, and there’s just a peace down there with different energy than a mountain town. It’s slow, you can take a breath, and the sunsets over the prairie are just phenomenal.”

Beyond Prowers County, VistaWorks has also promoted La Junta and other destinations on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. “All of our clients have seen year-to-year growth, so we feel like we’ve been successful,” Diamond says. 

“There is a lot of potential,” she adds. “They’re growing, they know there are more initiatives now to promote tourism and to also share the benefits of tourism with their community. All of that’s happening, and it’s really exciting. The plains are pretty special and shouldn’t be overlooked when compared to the mountains.” 

That said, the pile of money that’s cumulatively gone into branding Colorado as a mountain destination might rival the peaks themselves. It’s not just state and local campaigns, it’s countless beer and SUV ads, scores of Hollywood productions, and general public perception at this point. 

“Colorado has a bad habit of only promoting the mountains. Well, that’s a third of the state,” notes Richard Taylor, co-owner of Sundance-High Plains RV Park and Cabins in Lamar. “We’ve got the high desert on one side, the high plains on the other side, but Colorado pretty much promotes the mountains. I understand, it’s been their moneymaker for years, but we need to diversify a bit.”

Taylor and co-owner Derek Mudd have invested about $200,000 in the park since buying it in 2017. Revenue has increased by an average of 20% every year, with visitors from the Front Range helping drive the uptick. 

“Everybody that’s tired of fighting the I-70 traffic getting to the mountains, they’re starting to think about this,” Taylor says. “They want to get away for the weekend, but they don’t want to go to Breckenridge and spend $300 a night.” 

That said, Taylor sees room for improvement. “I think better marketing would be great,” he says. “I don’t think at the moment the area really has a unified front. Lamar’s promoting Lamar, La Junta is promoting La Junta. We need more of a unified front.”  

Summer 2016 Potholes And Monument Canyon Jvanwaveren
Photographer: Johanna vanWaveren

Patricia Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword in Denver, is part of a group that bought the World’s Wonder View Tower in Genoa, 101 miles east of Denver, in 2016. The 65-foot tower sits at the highest point between New York and Denver and is now owned by a nonprofit, Friends of the Genoa Tower. 

The roadside attraction where tourists could stop and see six states has been shuttered since previous owner Jerry Chubbuck died in 2013. Calhoun says the restoration project has been bogged down with water and sewer issues, but she’s hopeful the tower will reopen as a community center by 2026, the tower’s 100th anniversary.  

“The vision is certainly to restore it to its traditional role as a way station for travelers and a gathering place for the community,” she says. “It has always had those two roles, but those will be updated for the 21st century so travelers will be able to charge their electric cars if they want.” 

On the table: artists-in-residence and arts programming for local students, concerts and special events, visitors center, food trucks, drive-in movies and maybe a disc golf course. 

Chubbuck’s collection of bizarre relics was auctioned off, so it won’t be a museum. “No more two-headed cows, although we are certainly still trying to procure a two-headed calf, just because everybody remembers that to the nth degree,” Calhoun says. 

Calhoun is also quick to point out new energy in communities like Hugo and Byers, and the amalgam of old and new is producing some interesting results. 

She says the region needs “critical mass of places for people to go, and — let’s face it—attention. Getting the kind of attention so people know there’s an option. You do not have to drive west on I-70 and get stuck in that horrific traffic every weekend. You could head east almost without any traffic and go to some really stunning places.”   

 

Denver-based writer Eric Peterson is the author of Frommer’s Colorado, Frommer’s Montana & Wyoming, Frommer’s Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and the Ramble series of guidebooks, featuring first-person travelogues covering everything from atomic landmarks in New Mexico to celebrity gone wrong in Hollywood. Peterson has also recently written about backpacking in Yosemite, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone and downhill skiing in Colorado for such publications as Denver’s Westword and The New York Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected]