New snow and a three-day holiday weekend combined to boost business at Colorado ski resorts.
Several resorts reported that hotels and lodges were near capacity.
Fresh snow also brought an apparent increase in Front Range day skiers, although resorts did not release skier totals for the weekend.
Steamboat has received about 18 inches of snow since Thursday, enough that some flights into the Yampa Valley Regional Airport were delayed. Despite the delays, 1,900 passengers arrived Saturday, up from last year’s 1,790 on the Saturday of Presidents Day weekend.
“We very much welcomed the snow,” said Andy Wirth, senior vice president of marketing and sales at . “We’ve been on the lower side of snowfall totals this year compared to the last two years.”
Below-average snowfall in much of Colorado has hurt ski resorts’ hopes for a recovery from a subpar season a year ago, when the weak economy diminished skier visits.
Skier visits from October through December, the most recent period reported, were up 1 percent at the 22 resorts represented by Colorado Ski Country USA.
Industry analyst Ralf Garrison of the Mountain Travel Research Program said resort-hotel bookings for February in Colorado and other Western states were up 2.4 percent from last year.
“There has been a positive pulse in reservations for the holiday weekend in the past two weeks,” he said. “The likely cocktail for this increase is a combination of snow, the prospect of snow, a three-day weekend and some Olympics buzz. It’s nice to finally be talking about increases.”
‘s lodging occupancy rate over the weekend was 95 percent, compared with 89 percent for the same weekend last year.
“It’s been very busy this weekend,” said Bill Wishowski of the Breckenridge Resort Chamber. “We were blessed with perfect timing in terms of snowfall and the holiday weekend.”
Hotel rooms managed by Resort were sold out over the weekend. Skier visits were “tracking slightly ahead of last year,” Winter Park spokeswoman Mistalynn Lee said.
spokesman David Roth described weekend business as “strong.” He said skier visits were comparable with Presidents Day weekends over the past five years.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
