{"id":93740,"date":"2019-06-02T05:03:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T11:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-tourism-rising-from-the-ashes\/"},"modified":"2019-06-02T05:03:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T11:03:09","slug":"southwest-colorado-tourism-rising-from-the-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-tourism-rising-from-the-ashes\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Colorado tourism rising from the ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Durango Rivertrippers & Adventure Tours raft goes through a rapid on the Animas River on Tuesday at the Durango Whitewater Park. As of mid-May, <a href=\"https:\/\/mild2wildrafting.com\/\">Mild to Wild Rafting and Jeep Tours<\/a> was up 30% in booked rafting tours out of Durango, said Mild to Wild Manager Kolben Preble.
A Durango Rivertrippers & Adventure Tours raft goes through a rapid on the Animas River on Tuesday at the Durango Whitewater Park. As of mid-May, <a href=\"https:\/\/mild2wildrafting.com\/\">Mild to Wild Rafting and Jeep Tours<\/a> was up 30% in booked rafting tours out of Durango, said Mild to Wild Manager Kolben Preble.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

All indications point to a strong tourism season in Southwest Colorado, and the headwinds hurting the region last year \u2013 drought and fire \u2013 look to be but a memory.<\/p>\n

In fact, last year\u2019s summer of troubles may actually help this season by generating pent-up demand.<\/p>\n

Lodgers tax collections through April are up only 3.5% compared with 2018. However, the biggest months for lodgers tax collection are June through October, which were weak in 2018 because of wildfires and drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be up in the first quarter is a good sign, and from what I\u2019ve heard, I do think there is some pent-up demand, people who canceled plans last year or who didn\u2019t consider Durango because of the fire,\u201d said Barbara Bowman, interim executive director of the Durango Area Tourism Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As of mid-May, Mild to Wild Rafting and Jeep Tours<\/a> was up 30% in booked rafting tours out of Durango, said Mild to Wild Manager Kolben Preble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe snowpack has really created a buzz in the rafting community,\u201d Preble said.<\/p>\n

He added that enough snowpack existed to allow for a boating season on the Dolores River, which began last week and ran through Thursday, has stoked further interest in Southwest Colorado among rafters. Another release from McPhee Reservoir to allow additional rafting of the Dolores is also anticipated in mid-June.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever there\u2019s a rafting season on the Dolores, it brings people in. You don\u2019t get to run the Dolores every year, and when you can, people come from all over, from New Mexico and Arizona and Texas, and that really helps everyone,\u201d Preble said.<\/p>\n

Christian Robbins, spokesman with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad<\/a>, said bookings and data analysis for the Silverton season, which runs from May until October, projects ridership will exceed 150,000 and perhaps hit 160,000.<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad locomotive 482 leaves the Durango depot pulling the first train of the season to Silverton on the morning of May 4. Christian Robbins, spokesman with the D&SNG, said bookings and data analysis for the Silverton season, which runs from May until October, projects ridership will exceed 150,000.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The railroad\u2019s projections are based on bookings and other data analysis it does that goes back 10 years.<\/p>\n

In addition, bookings for all D&SNG\u2019s runs, including the Polar Express, are likely to exceed 200,000 riders for the first time since 2014, he said.<\/p>\n

Robbins said the way people book has changed in the last 10 years, and fewer people book months in advance, a practice common a decade ago. So he cautioned that some of the D&SNG\u2019s projections are based on expected ridership from late bookers based on patterns from the last 10 seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t say it\u2019s from pent-up demand, but some people would have come last year, but they couldn\u2019t, so maybe they saved the trip for this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Currently, the train is on pace to have its best year since 2001, Robbins said. Carrie Whitley, D&SNG director of travel and trade, said already bookings from international travelers and tour groups are up 6% compared with this time in 2018, a year that had strong numbers until the outbreak of the 416 Fire.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Mild to Wild Rafting & Jeep Tours raft goes through a rapid on the Animas River on Tuesday at the Durango Whitewater Park.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Nigel Peck, owner of the Adventure Inn<\/a>, anticipates annual room rentals for Durango will be up around 5%, but after three years of renovating and upgrading his property, which was formerly the Knight\u2019s Inn, he anticipates his summer bookings will more than double 2018 numbers.<\/p>\n

He projects his annual 2019 rentals at the Adventure Inn will be up more than 21%.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s pent-up demand as much as it is growing demand,\u201d Peck said, noting tourism is up throughout Colorado this year.<\/p>\n

Also, last year\u2019s fire kept Durango in the news, and although it was for the wrong reason, Peck said that publicity had some value.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, you heard about the fire in Durango as a negative, but you did hear about Durango all summer,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not all bad. Somebody comes to a city because they know about the city. That\u2019s the power of advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

year\u2019s water could revive industry hurt by last year\u2019s drought, fires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[170,13,421],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-93740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-durango-and-silverton-narrow-gauge-railroad-co","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-tourism-and-leisure"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93740","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=93740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93740"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=93740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}