With less snow, fewer people booked rooms in Western states for holiday skiing — and spring reservations are lower, too

Winter’s woeful start showed up on the December balance sheets of mountain resorts across the West.

Lodging businesses tracked by Vermont-based Inntopia took in 3.5 percent less revenue last month than they did in December 2016. Although the average nightly rate was up 1 percent over the previous year, a 4.4 percent drop in year-over-year occupancy drove the decline, said Inntopia vice president Tom Foley.

A dip was anticipated. With Christmas falling on a Monday, many schools stayed in session until the prior Friday, limiting pre-Christmas arrivals. But nature made matters worse.

“Low snowfall added to the challenge, but right now, a strong and loyal consumer base — coupled with favorable economic conditions — is helping lodging properties maintain room rates,” Foley said.

Still, he added, the ongoing dry weather is negatively impacting late-winter business.

Bookings made last month for any time the rest of the season were down 14.5 percent from December 2016, when snowfall also started slowly but then went wild through the holiday season. Reservations for March, which includes both school spring breaks and the week before Easter, are down nearly 14 percent.

Inntopia’s data comes from nearly 300 property-management companies overseeing 30,000 rooms at 20 mountain destinations in Utah, Colorado, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. It does not break out information for Utah.

A Denver-based monitor, the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report, said Utah’s mountain resorts had a 46.9 percent occupancy rate in December, down from 49.4 percent a year earlier. But consistent with the Inntopia data, the Lodging Report found that the average nightly rate last month went up almost $6 to $323.45.

December’s results capped a calendar year in which Utah’s resorts filled 54.3 percent of their rooms nightly, up from 50.5 percent a year earlier. Guests paid more to stay each night — around $223.50, compared to $219 in the final month of 2016.

Hotels in Salt Lake County and statewide had a 3 percent increase in occupancy in December, ensuring there wasn’t a month in 2017 in which visitation fell from the previous year.

As a result, occupancy statewide rose from 69.6 percent in 2016 to 71.9 percent last year. In Salt Lake County, where a majority of hotel rooms are located, occupancy climbed to 76.4 percent in 2017 from 73.7 percent a year earlier.