{"id":131047,"date":"2026-05-29T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-finance-and-tourism-directors-cautiously-optimistic\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T11:00:00","slug":"cortez-finance-and-tourism-directors-cautiously-optimistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-finance-and-tourism-directors-cautiously-optimistic\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez finance and tourism directors cautiously optimistic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Finance
Finance Director Randy Bailey and Mesa Verde Country Executive Director Brian Bartlett presented their finance and tourism reports to the Cortez City Council on Tuesday, demonstrating positive trends in spending and travel with some barriers. (Ann Marie Vanderveen\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Cortez staff members expressed optimism for the city\u2019s economic future given recent financial and tourism reports, noting domestic travel, steady development and spending consistent with the city\u2019s budget as being positive indicators.<\/p>\n

\u201cCautious optimism is probably the play right now,\u201d said Finance Director Randy Bailey during in a Tuesday presentation to City Council. \u201cWe have a good budget, we have a good plan, we have great priorities, we\u2019re executing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city is on track with its budget and revenue for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Development activity \u2012 including remodels, home improvements and building permitting \u2012 is also on track, with the city seeing a 6.8% growth rate each year since 2021.<\/p>\n

He noted, however, that inflation is up with statistics from the Front Range showing a 1.7% increase over February and March, largely due to increasing energy costs. Capital spending is trending positively as interest rates are stabilizing around 6%, but slowing employment and lower consumer confidence are negating its effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some scary stuff out there. Tariffs, tax cuts, inflation, energy costs, war \u2012 those types of things,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cSo we all need to have in our back pocket what are we going to do if things change dramatically, and I think this leadership team is poised to do just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mesa Verde Country Executive Director Brian Bartlett covered similar concerns and voiced equal optimism in his presentation to council on the region\u2019s 2025 tourism report, a crucial indicator of Cortez\u2019s economic standing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very obvious that we have an economy that\u2019s based on tourism. It benefits from tourism. Our local restaurants, our local establishments could not possibly survive if we did not bring a pipeline of travelers, tourists, visitors into this area,\u201d Bartlett said.<\/p>\n

The 2025 report showed visitor spending increased by 8%, but according to Bartlett it\u2019s not entirely on tourists\u2019 own volition.<\/p>\n

\u201cInflation is a driving force behind that. When you see visitor spend numbers that are up by 8% \u2013 which they are \u2013 it is not all due to the increased activity. It is mostly due to the economic situation that we\u2019re all dealing with right now,\u201d Bartlett said.<\/p>\n

As regional tourism recovers, jet fuel prices and global disease outbreaks are halting the recovery of international visitation, which typically yields spending seven times higher per day per visitor than that of domestic travelers, according to Bartlett\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur international visitation to the U.S. remains in a gradual, extremely slow and a highly fragile recovery mode. No news there,\u201d Bartlett said.<\/p>\n

But Southwestern road trippers are increasingly driving to Cortez, making Mesa Verde National Park a focal point of their itineraries.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur strong drive market has visitation from Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Texas,\u201d Bartlett said. \u201cOur domestic leisure travel remains resilient despite the economic pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tourism is expected to grow this year. Most lodgers, retailers and other tourism experience businesses saw increases upward of 5% of their expected visitors over Memorial Day weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur overall visitation forecast for 2026 into 2027 is plus 1% to possibly plus 4%. Those are pretty positive numbers,\u201d Bartlett said.<\/p>\n

Through partnerships with statewide travel offices as well as social influencers and travel writers, Bartlett said Mesa Verde Country aims to benefit Cortez by drawing in visitors to experience the culture, archaeology and heritage unique to the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany travelers want space, authenticity and lower crowd experiences rather than over-tourism destinations, which is how the city of Cortez has been precisely positioned,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in a great spot for that right now, and it\u2019s time for us to grow under that aegis.\u201d<\/p>\n

avanderveen@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

benefiting from domestic visitors and growing development; inflation and low consumer confidence remain concerns <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,1429,11,28,29,6419,1187],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-131047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-city-council","tag-economy-general","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem","tag-tourism"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131047"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=131047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}