Christmas hotel bookings off 27 percent
Advance hotel bookings for Aspen and Snowmass Village are down significantly through the new year, including a 27 percent drop in hotel reservations in both resorts for the Christmas week of Dec. 21-27, according to new occupancy reports from central bookings agency Stay Aspen Snowmass.
As of Nov. 30, 59 percent of Aspen’s hotel rooms were booked for Christmas week, down from 86 percent at the same time last year. In Snowmass, 43 percent of rooms have been booked for the holiday week, having fallen from 70 percent booked a year ago.
Actual Christmas week bookings ended up being 87 percent in Aspen and 75 percent in Snowmass last year.
Overall advance bookings for Aspen this December are down from 60 percent capacity last year to 46 percent this year. Snowmass is down to 32 percent from 41 percent last December. Last December ended up at 64 percent in Aspen and 45 percent in Snowmass.
Advance bookings in both municipalities are higher in January, though both still substantially trail last year’s rates: Aspen dropping from 73 percent booked in advance to 62 percent; Snowmass down 10 points from 62 percent to 52 percent.
Christine O’Donnell, president of the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association, said yesterday that the rest of the state’s ski area hotels are taking a similar hit, with reservations down over last season in the 25 percent to 35 percent range. Vail Resorts announced yesterday that the ski towns they control are down 23 percent overall in advance reservations.
The woeful national and international economic landscape is the obvious culprit, with skiers planning their winter vacations closer to home, in more affordable ski towns, or canceling them altogether.
“Higher-end properties like Aspen are at risk of taking the biggest hit,” O’Donnell said.
But Stay Aspen Snowmass President Bill Tomcich said these worrisome advance numbers are not the final word on the local ski season’s tourist haul. Tomcich cited the oft-reported fact that historically, good snow makes for good business, even when the national economy is in recession, and said tourists may be waiting until later to make their plans.
“Last year we saw an awful lot of last-minute demand,” he said. “We expect we are going to see some last-minute demand this year, but whether it is enough to fill our vacancies we don’t know.”
And, he said, the week after Christmas, which was not included in the monthly report, was looking fairly strong. Normally booked solid, the week of Dec. 28 to Jan. 3 is about 75 percent reserved in Aspen.
“There are people who say the glass is half empty and people who say the glass is half full,” Tomcich said, “and at 75 percent, I would say our glass is three-fourths full. By no means is the sky falling.”
In any event, he said he expects the number of tourists in Aspen and Snowmass this winter to fall behind last year’s, which brought the most skiers here since the 1997-98 season, making the year-to-year comparison look worse than it truly is.
The ace up Aspen’s sleeve may turn out to be flight availability. More flights are coming in now than they have since that same 1997-98 winter. And a confluence of factors, including the addition of Frontier Airlines to Aspen’s providers and the plummeting price of oil, said Tomcich, have made for the most affordable high-season airfare to Aspen in recent memory. Tomcich and others in the hospitality industry are banking on those more affordable flights to fuel a late-booking tourist influx. That is, if it snows enough here to make them want to come.
“At this point we just do not know what’s going to happen this winter,” Tomcich said.
One sign that the Aspen cosmos is not completely out of whack: The Little Nell is sold out for the last two weeks of the year.
“We are very fortunate to have the clientele who come back at the end of the year, every year,” said Justin Todd, the five-star luxury hotel’s sales and marketing director. “This was the one getaway that they did not want to release.”
The Little Nell has not decreased their rates, which begin at $560 per night this winter. They are, however, offering what they’re calling a “Hassle Free Package,” through which they are enticing guests staying at least four nights with incentives including a $250 credit toward shipping luggage, ski gear demos and the right to test drive an Audi Q7 or A8L. The package is not available during Christmas week and in other high-volume periods.
Local businesses are deploying deals and discounts to score coveted last-minute vacation bookers, including one from the Aspen Skiing Co., Frontier Airlines and Stay Aspen Snowmass that lets one child under 12 fly, ski, and rent gear free of charge for every four-night hotel/ski package bought by an adult in their party.
“People are looking for bargains,” Tomcich said, “and this is the year to get them.”
Hotels have also dropped their minimum-stay requirements, meaning you can get a room in Aspen or Snowmass for New Year’s Eve without having to stay for the past year’s standard three or four night minimum or any minimum at all.
Brad Wyatt, general manager of the new Limelight Lodge, said their sales went up after they lifted the minimum-stay rule. And he said they are booking fewer guests than they had expected this winter, but are outperforming the rest of the Aspen market. Their Christmas week bookings are pushing 70 percent of capacity, according to Wyatt.
“We’re pretty optimistic,” he said, “I think we’re performing a little better than the rest of the market — maybe because we’re the new kid in town.”
andrew@aspendailynews.com
