Lodging data for Western mountain resorts shows June’s booking pace is up for the first time in six months, bringing an end to the longest streak for declining bookings since 2020. However, behind the data is a sharp decrease in available lodgings for visitors to spend the night.

Participating destinations across seven Western states — Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho — are finally seeing slight improvement in booking pace since November 2024, according to data from Inntopia’s DestiMetrics monthly market briefing.

Although bookings for arrival in all six months from June through October were up year-over-year, there are currently 47,000 fewer rooms available per night compared to last summer, which makes it challenging to provide a clear comparison to the previous year’s data set.

“This month’s report had a lot of contradictions, driven primarily by changes in available inventory this year compared to last, which can alter year-over-year comparisons like occupancy,” said Tom Foley, senior vice president of Business Intelligence for Inntopia and author of the market briefing report.

Foley said the steep decline in available units is heavily related to a decreasing inventory of paid stay options, which mountain resort communities are seeing for two reasons: more people are choosing to vacation in units they already own — thus making the units unavailable for other renters — and more rental units are being put on the market or undergoing renovations.

“Owners are staying in their units more this year than last, that’s the most common response that we’re getting,” Foley said, referring to results from a survey of Inntopia’s partners. “A little less common (response), but well up there is that a lot of units are actively being listed for sale. … Owners are actually actively preparing to sell their unit, and so they’ve taken it off the market for that.”

Colorado makes up a large share of the “missing rooms.” Of the 47,000-room decrease compared to last year, roughly 26,000 are coming from Colorado destinations, though “the data is also going to be weighted towards Colorado because of the number of resorts,” according to Foley.

The observation that more owners are putting their vacation rentals up for sale this summer is supported by the uptick in housing inventory across Colorado’s Western Slope. For some counties, the influx of homes on the market has reached levels not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Available inventory in mountain towns is very dynamic, because there’s a large owner component that makes units available or unavailable for rent based upon their own use preferences or how they may be renting it separately, and so inventory changes. That’s a natural dynamic of understanding occupancy in mountain towns,” Foley said. “The difference is that this year it’s considerably more exaggerated compared to the norm.”

A rise in bookings

June bookings

Occupancy for June alone among the participating mountain destinations climbed 2.6% compared to June of last year, while the average daily rate grew by 0.8%. Together, the two resulted in a 3.4% increase in aggregated revenue for the month.

When factoring in the decreased number of rooms, however, the 2.6% climb in bookings made in June for same-month arrivals would be closer to 1.2%.

Bookings for the full summer season

Occupancy for May through October was down 0.4% compared to last year as of June 30, with the months of June, August, and October showing increases. The other three months — May, July, and September — are seeing moderate declines. July saw the most significant drop in bookings, down 4.2%, according to the report.

Daily rates are now up 4% for the summer, with the most growth occurring in the month of September. Because pure demand was down 1.9% for all summer months, with declines in each month except October, however, the shift points to a slightly less positive scenario.

Although pure demand pace softened in June and is down for the season, properties were able to find the right balance of rate and volume to nudge revenue from a 1.7% gain for the summer as of May 31 to a 2% gain as of June 30, Foley said.

“Even though there were fewer nights booked during June this year, room rates edged up month-over-month and year-over-year, giving the bottom line a much-needed boost,” Foley said in the report. 

Tourism trends

Similar to the last several months, bookings from international visitors have continued to decline in year-over-year comparisons — still largely thanks to tariff anxiety and other political impacts. 

Visitation from Canada to Western mountain destinations is now down more than 58% while Western Europe is down 39%. Mexico is flat after being up 6.5% percent in early June. Visitation from the Oceania region — including Australia and New Zealand  — is down 20.5%, according to the report.

“Unequivocally, (decreasing) international tourism is a direct result of U.S. foreign trade policy,” Foley said.

The decrease in visitation from both domestic and international travelers could also be attributed to higher economic pressures on the consumer. Foley said that although increases in taxes are fairly widespread across the West, mountain travel destinations often create higher expenses compared to other tourism destinations.

“Overall, we’re seeing that the mountain travel industry has outpaced inflation as far as prices go, not just for lodging, but for most services,” Foley said. “I think it’s a combination of supply and demand and the economics 101 of, ‘If they’re coming, we’ll charge, and they’re willing to pay it.'”

Revenues across the participating properties also reported a comfortable year-over-year increase, though some pricing tiers are struggling more than others.

Properties priced in the moderate and luxury tiers performed better in June than those in the economy tier (up to $250 per night), a reversal from last month when more visitors were prioritizing lower-priced accommodations. 

Although economy-priced lodgings had a good month in May, the tier saw a 7.8% decline in summer occupancy and a 5.3% decline in revenue across Western states. Moderate and luxury properties both saw increased occupancy, rate and revenues, with luxury growing the most.

“There’s a reason that the luxury tier is overperforming the moderate tier, and they’re both overperforming economy, and that has everything to do with the affluence and relative economic insulation that mountain town consumers enjoy,” Foley said. “They function well above the national consumer confidence level, and they represent some of the highest earners in the country.”

The future of travel to mountain resorts

Although the weekend of July 4 saw positive bookings, the rest of the month is faltering. According to the report, only four of the 31 days in the month posted gains compared with July of last year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average — a measure for the overall health of the U.S. stock market — closed on June 30 with a 4.3% gain, its highest monthly close since January. The surge comes partially from “an easing of trade tensions with China,” according to Inntopia’s report. Strong corporate earnings also encouraged action from investors.

“Tempering the good news though was the downgrading of the US credit rating, persistent inflation, and anxiety about tariff threats,” the report states. Consumers expressed mixed views during June as the Consumer Confidence Index slid back by over 5% after strong growth in May. The regression marks the fifth time in the past six months that the confidence index has “lost ground.”

Tariffs and inflation were cited as the primary reasons for the retreating optimism, though geopolitical concerns were also reported.