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The pace of winter bookings at Western mountain resorts slowed during September for the first time in three years, falling 2.3 percent below last year's pace.
DestiMetrics, a Denver-based organization that monitors the lodging industry at 19 mountain resorts in Utah and five other Western states, said the slowdown left reservations for November through March down 1.1 percent from the 2014-15 winter.
But property managers are charging a higher average daily rate, said DestiMetrics Director Ralf Garrison, boosting revenues by 2.1 percent.
"The decrease in the winter-booking pace is the first such reversal of momentum in several years," Garrison said. "It's a little surprising because the industry is coming off the best summer ever."
Lodging establishments at mountain resorts reported a 7 percent increase in summer occupancy and 11 percent jump in revenues.
"While it is still quite early in the booking season and the numbers are still relatively small," he added, "we'll be monitoring both 'econometrics' and weather patterns in the next few weeks to see how they might change booking patterns — for better or worse."
Garrison's colleague, Tom Foley, said "anemic" job-creation numbers in September and growing concern about a global slowdown were "a real worry. … A prolonged period of reduced job creation or a slowing in earnings growth may impact discretionary consumer spending, including travel."
Warm fall weather around the West may have slowed bookings as well, said Garrison, whose company surveys 290 property-management companies responsible for 27,500 rooms in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, California, Nevada and Oregon.
Another Denver-based monitor of the hotel industry, the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report, said September occupancy rates in Utah continued the year's pace of being about 3 percent ahead of 2014.
Hotels statewide filled 74.6 percent of their rooms last month, up from 71.7 percent in September of 2014. For the first nine months of 2015, the occupancy rate is 72.6 percent, compared to 69.7 percent in the same span a year earlier. Hoteliers were taking in an extra $5 per room per night, the Lodging Report said.
In Salt Lake County, which accounts for nearly 300,000 of the 540,000 hotel room nights measured, the occupancy rate hit 80 percent, a 2.4 percent gain over the previous September. The nine-month booking rate (77.3 percent) is 2.7 percent ahead of the previous year's pace. County hoteliers were getting $6 more per room each night, $110.25 on average.
September occupancy
[Percent of rooms filled nightly]
Location 2015 2014
Salt Lake 77.3 74.5
Ogden 73.6 62.7
Davis Co. 75.7 69.7
Cedar City 71.4 67.9
St. George 74.4 73.0
Logan 67.1 60.5
Utah Co. 72.6 71.0
Mt. resorts 53.8 53.7
Other Utah 64.8 64.9
Total 72.6 69.7
Source: Rocky Mountain Lodging Report