{"id":22315,"date":"2025-05-10T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tourism-forecast-shows-nationwide-slump-but-durango-experts-remain-optimistic\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:12:49","slug":"tourism-forecast-shows-nationwide-slump-but-durango-experts-remain-optimistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tourism-forecast-shows-nationwide-slump-but-durango-experts-remain-optimistic\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourism forecast shows nationwide slump, but Durango experts remain optimistic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"While
While other states in the nation such as Arizona and Texas grapple with heat waves and temperatures rising into the 100s, the sidewalks of downtown Durango were filling up with tourists on Tuesday for the July 4 holiday. Therron Brockish of Phoenix said he and his wife forestalled their return to Arizona to escape the heat and explore the city of Durango, a place they\u2019ve wanted to visit for a long time but haven\u2019t until now. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As the nation braces for a downturn in the tourism industry, declines in Durango\u2019s summer visitation rates are projected to be minor, and local businesses remain optimistic.<\/p>\n

Tourism in La Plata County declined 20% in February and March compared with the same months last year, according to data from Visit Durango.<\/p>\n

The tourism office expects this summer to be a \u201ccorrection summer,\u201d because last year\u2019s visitation numbers outpaced trends seen elsewhere in Colorado. This season, officials anticipate local visitation to stabilize and align with statewide averages, said Rachel Welsh, a spokeswoman Visit Durango.<\/p>\n

Most summer visitors are expected to arrive by car, especially from nearby regions such as New Mexico, Arizona, Denver and Colorado Springs, Welsh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage our local community to help our tourism industry by inviting their friends and family to visit,\u201d she said. \u201cWith the current economic climate, we must support our local businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, local businesses are not concerned about a potential drop in tourist traffic.<\/p>\n

Nationally, airline companies have experienced a significant decline<\/a> in travel, which is projected to continue into the summer months. But Durango-La Plata County Airport is bucking the trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overall growth of passenger traffic here in our market, at least so far in 2025, is significantly outstripping what we\u2019re seeing on the national level,\u201d said Toni Vicari, the airport\u2019s director of aviation.<\/p>\n

While the number of travelers passing through TSA checkpoints nationally has flattened, Vicari said the airport has seen a 13% increase this year.<\/p>\n

Although the data do not distinguish between local travelers and incoming tourists, he said a significant portion of the traffic is tourism-related.<\/p>\n

Vicari said the local market has so far been \u201cresilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is similarly optimistic. Although summer reservations are down slightly, owner Al Harper said it\u2019s not a cause for concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set all-time records three years in a row,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you can do that every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The summer season has not officially started, and the railroad sells a lot of walk-up tickets, he said.<\/p>\n

Harper emphasized that while \u201cright now, we may be down slightly, it\u2019s not big numbers. We will have a good year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Mickel, owner of Mild to Wild Rafting & Jeep Tours, said that while some of the rafting outfit\u2019s other locations are experiencing an uptick in reservations, Durango is not among them.<\/p>\n

Although international tourism is down nationwide, Mickel said foreign visitors account for only a small percentage of his business, and he doesn\u2019t believe that is behind the drop in local bookings.<\/p>\n

Instead, he speculated that an increase in local anti-tourism sentiment may be playing a role.<\/p>\n

Mickel said there is less of a community support for promoting tourism than there was five years ago.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Mickel said the one factor that could significantly impact the business is wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest fear would be if we have a dry spring and early summer that we could see some fires, especially below the 8,500-foot level here to the south,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 As you can imagine, if you have a choice to go somewhere full of smoke, or somewhere it\u2019s not, you\u2019d much rather go where it\u2019s not smoky.\u201d<\/p>\n

jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking ahead to summer, local businesses project a minimal decline in customers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,170,28,1799,1187,810,421],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-durango-and-silverton-narrow-gauge-railroad-co","tag-headlines","tag-rafting","tag-tourism","tag-tourism-recreation","tag-tourism-and-leisure"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22315","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=22315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77660,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22315\/revisions\/77660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22315"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}