Vacation rental bookings for blockbuster end-of-year holidays are down this year compared to last, but industry experts say there’s still time to make up ground. 

For tens of thousands of lodging properties across the western U.S., November bookings are down an average 8.9%, while December’s occupancy is down 7.7%, according to Tom Foley, a senior vice president for the lodging software company Inntopia. 

“As far as the end of 2024, I am slightly concerned,” said Foley, who tracks lodging data across more than a dozen resort areas, including destinations in Colorado like Breckenridge, Vail and Aspen.

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While the holiday weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s are poised to remain some of the busiest of the year, myriad factors have caused bookings for those dates to slow compared to this time in 2023. 

Economic sentiment continues to wax and wane, though the Federal Reserve’s plans to gradually reduce interest rates — which impact credit card payments — could help boost purchasing power before the year’s end. Presidential election years also tend to dampen consumer spending, at least in the lead-up to Election Day, Foley said. 

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“We do know that elections have very little tail to them,” Foley said. “That angst clears up once the election’s over almost immediately, at least historically. And so we don’t expect there to be any lingering consumer sentiment.”

For those reasons, “I’m slightly reserving judgment on that and waiting to see how things are in the next few weeks,” he added. 

Experts are also anticipating a shift in booking patterns based on changes to school calendars this year. According to Foley, there will be roughly half as many school children on break for the week before Christmas compared to that same week in 2023. Winter breaks will instead push into the first week of January, meaning there could be more opportunities for bookings early that month. 

Average nightly rates are slightly up in December and January, by 2.2% and 2.5%. 

Foley said lodging providers will routinely adjust rates based on their booking trends adding that “overall, we’re looking at really moderate and manageable differences in revenue” despite the dip in occupancy. 

With Christmas and New Year’s Day both falling on a Wednesday, some lodging providers are seeing bookings that are shorter for this time compared to previous seasons, said Julie Koster, executive director for the Colorado Lodging and Resort Alliance.

“With the holiday days themselves being midweek … that’s kind of messing with things,” Koster said. “I would say it’s pretty flat compared to last year. We have our typical spikes over the holidays, but November and December are neutral at best for much of the state … but hopefully, we can see some last-minute pick-up.”

The biggest deciding factor for new reservations will be snow, and Koster said she’s hoping favorable conditions could fill in the gaps in the first weeks of December, which typically see less activity than the end of the month. 

If snow does boost bookings for that time, “that’s going to be a lot of our more local, Front Range traffic that comes up,” Koster said.

Looking to the first few months of 2025, both Foley and Koster are more reassured by what they see. Inntopia data shows that, on average, bookings for January are only slightly down compared to this time last year while February, March and April are all trending upwards across the western U.S.

“I think the core of the season is set up well,” Foley said. 

Koster said she’s seeing a fairly typical pattern for big dates like Presidents Day week and spring break, adding that while it’s “looking good, there’s still a lot to fill in.”

Koster said a main focus of the lodging industry this winter season will be pushing for more overnight tourism.

Data from the Colorado Tourism Office shows that international travel to the U.S. has fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to recover. In resort towns, that’s translated to an influx of day visitors and a drop in the number of overnight stays vacation rentals typically see within a season. Colorado ski areas also reported a slight decrease in visits — as much as 7% — during the 2023-24 season for the first time since 2019. 

Colorado Tourism Office Director Tim Wolfe, in a September interview, said while booking trends may bounce back, “I don’t think it will be as aggressive. It may even stay down because, for the first time ever, more people are traveling out and overseas than coming into the United States.”

Koster said that poses a long-term challenge for resort areas. 

“In communities around the state, that’s our worst nightmare,” Koster said. “We want the overnight visitors because those are the people that visit our restaurants, shop at our retail outlets and spend money that supports our overall community.”