{"id":30151,"date":"2023-12-16T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/shopping-local-for-the-holidays-this-years-season-breaks-records\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:12:26","slug":"shopping-local-for-the-holidays-this-years-season-breaks-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/shopping-local-for-the-holidays-this-years-season-breaks-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Shopping local for the holidays: This year\u2019s season breaks records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The sidewalks of downtown Durango were filled in 2017 during Noel Night. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With Christmas around the corner, businesses and holiday shoppers can expect to see the season conclude with spending exceeding last year\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n

Holiday spending is going up nationally according to analysts, with numbers predicted to hit a record total between $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion in consumer spending between November and December, according to the National Retail Federation.<\/p>\n

Jack Llewellyn, the Durango Chamber of Commerce\u2019s CEO, said Durango is following the national trend.<\/p>\n

The Durango Business Improvement District\u2019s Holiday Rewards Program recorded $172,000 in local sales from receipts submitted to receive a gift card for certain amounts spent. All rewards were claimed within two weeks of the program starting, Llewellyn said. Additional holiday sales were not included in that number.<\/p>\n

Local spending helps give back to the local economy through what Llewellyn referred to as the \u201cmultiplier effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you buy local and spend local, that money stays here, and the dollar is more likely to say turnover five to seven times, which is then called the multiplier effect,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you buy from a small business, then you\u2019re helping support local charities or helping that family put their kid in Little League and their friends and neighbors, that type of philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently ranked as America\u2019s second-most \u201cChristmassy\u201d town by Mixbook<\/a>, Durango features many holiday attractions such as the Polar Express train and events like Local First\u2019s Noel Night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there\u2019s approximately 40,000 riders for the Polar Express,\u201d Llewellyn said. \u201cSo that helps to stimulate a lot of local Christmas buying and shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

National spending is expected to be 3% to 4% greater than spending in the 2022 holiday season despite high inflation rates, according to the National Retail Federation.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers remain in the driver\u2019s seat, and are resilient despite headwinds of inflation, higher gas prices, stringent credit conditions and elevated interest rates,\u201d said NRF Chief Economist Jack Klenhenz in a new release.<\/p>\n

Llewellyn said the COVID-19 pandemic is partially responsible for the high demand this holiday season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of pent-up demand \u2026 just because people I talked to will say, \u2018We weren\u2019t able to take a trip\u2019 or \u2018we held off so let\u2019s go ahead and do some things,\u2019 or they\u2019re taking their family to experience the Polar Express. They\u2019re creating memories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Llewellyn also said shoppers in Durango are buying items like gear and equipment for outdoor sporting activities.<\/p>\n

Weslan Hansen is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at whansen@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National holiday spending predicted to hit more than $950 billion between November and December; Durango BID\u2019s Holiday Rewards Program records $172,000 in local sales<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,950,1698,28,1753],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-durango","tag-finance-general","tag-headlines","tag-holiday-or-vacation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30151","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=30151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80980,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30151\/revisions\/80980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30151"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}