Western mountain resorts are making money this summer

Mountain resorts across the West are making more money this summer even though visitation is down a bit.

Property-management companies at 20 mountain-destination communities took in 7.7 percent more revenue in July than they did a year earlier, despite occupancy being down 1.7 percent, according to DestiMetrics, a Denver-based research company that tracks resort lodging in Utah and seven other Western states.

That 7.7 percent gain is right in line with projections for the whole season, added DestiMetrics Director Ralf Garrison, based on reservations to date and advance bookings for the rest of the summer season.

“Revenue growth in the previous five summers has been due to steady growth in both occupancy and average daily rate. This summer is markedly different,” he said, noting reservations made in July were down 1.9 percent for August visits but up 3.3 percent for September.

Fall bookings are way up — 71 percent in October and 27 percent in November — with Garrison crediting a strong economy for a large portion of the revenue increase.

His data, drawn from 290 companies responsible for 30,000 rooms, showed that summer occupancy was up 1.1 percent at resorts in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. But that was more than offset regionally by a 2 percent decline in occupancy at resorts in California, Oregon and Nevada.

Figures from the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report, another monitoring organization in Denver, showed that Utah’s mountain resort properties filled 68.7 percent of their rooms in July, at an average rate of $155 a night. A year earlier, occupancy was 65 percent at $154 a night.

For the year’s first seven months, those properties had a 59.6 percent nightly occupancy rate, up from 54.6 percent in 2016. Room rates were up, too, from $239 to $244.

A similar scenario is playing out at lower elevations. July was the seventh straight month in which occupancy and daily rates were both up over the same period a year ago.

Hotels statewide filled 81.2 percent of their rooms last month, up from 78.4 percent in July of 2016, leaving the year-to-date occupancy rate at 73.7 percent. It was 71 percent through July 2016.

In Salt Lake County, last month’s 83.3 occupancy rate was up from 80.2 percent a year earlier. For the year, 78.3 percent of the 300,000 available hotel rooms in the report’s survey were filled nightly compared to 74.9 percent the previous year.

Hoteliers in Salt Lake County charged $20 more per night last month than they had a year earlier ($129.41 to $109.77), while the average statewide rate was up just $13 to $123.57.

Elsewhere, the Lodging Report said average monthly occupancy levels were 79 percent or higher from Logan and Ogden, through Davis and Utah counties, and on down to St. George and Cedar City.