The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Airline bookings down double digits from last year
“Congratulations, you’ve got your own private jet today.” While that statement from the United Airlines gate checker was a slight exaggeration, my 4 p.m. flight from Denver to Gunnison on Monday, January 11 had a total of four people on it, including me. We had to sit in the two back rows of the plane to keep things balanced on the smooth, 35-minute flight. Sure beats the heck out of driving from Denver… but one can’t help but wonder why there weren’t more people on board.
It’s about a month-and-a-half into the season, past the Christmas blast and into the throes of mellow middle January. How are things stacking up so far and what’s the rest of winter looking like? Local bus ridership is one indicator—Mountain Express Director Chris Larsen said December was down 9 percent, and the holiday period was down 6 percent. Overall, 2009 was down 5 percent from 2008, with 598,000 riders vs. 631,000.
“It was busy during the holiday period, but we didn’t have those super busy days,” Larsen said. “New Year’s Eve was probably the busiest day of the year and it was similar to last year. We hauled about 8,200 people, but it wasn’t busy at all on either side of New Year’s Eve.”
Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s holiday numbers are in, with skier days slightly down for December. According to CBMR Chief Operating Officer Ken Stone, “The week before Christmas was busier than last year and New Year’s week was slightly softer.
The feeling is that we are seeing a stronger mix of destination visitors who found good deals, and were able to spend additional dollars once they arrived on vacation.”
That trend was reflected by increases in guest spending at resort properties compared to last year. “Spending per guest was up 7 percent with higher spending in culinary, retail, rental, ski school and other activities,” Stone said. Overall for December, Stone said, skier days for the month were down 4 percent and resort-lodging occupancy was also down 8 percent compared to last year.
Still, people are making the trip, and airline load factors for December were up 11 percent over last year, Stone said. However, there are fewer seats to book in 2009 compared to 2008.
“Not only are we seeing a greater number of people returning to Crested Butte this year, we are also seeing a lot of people discovering Crested Butte for the first time,” Stone stated.
Wanda Bearth, owner and operator of Crested Butte Lodging, said Christmas week was just slightly ahead of that same week in 2008, by a fraction of a percent. “That was disappointing because three or four months out we were looking at a significant lead in pace,” she said. “We were enjoying a 15 to 20 percent lead, but since then we’ve suffered some group attrition. We didn’t lose them to another resort; they just decided to not travel.”
Bearth anticipates the remainder of the ski season to stay on par with last year. “For the rest of the season, it’s almost exactly on par to last year,” Bearth added. “It looks like January might be a little softer and March a little stronger.”
Scott Truex, Director of the Gunnison Valley Rural Transit Authority, addressed both the number of riders on the RTA buses and airline load factors. Per a January 5 report, the RTA bus ridership between Gunnison and Mt. Crested Butte was down 2,425 riders for December 2009 (13,412 total) compared to December 2008 (15,837 total). They also are running 9 percent fewer buses and went from 11 to 10 round trips per day.
When asked why he thought RTA ridership was in decline, Truex said: “I’d guess that the snow conditions were better last year, and people were riding the bus up [from Gunnison] to ride and ski.”
Regarding the number of airline passengers booked for the winter season to date, Truex said, “Overall we’re facing some challenges. We’ve booked 16,269 seats as of January 5, and last year at this point in time we had sold 19,464.” That’s a 16 percent decrease from last year. On a more micro level, December 2008 saw 5,758 seats sold versus 5,601 for December ‘09, a decrease of 157 or about 2.7 percent.
“Last year we had a year-end load factor of about 53 percent; the industry standard right now is about 80 percent,” Truex explained. Last year for the winter season, November through April, we had a capacity of 55,390 seats and this year our capacity is 45,622. We sold about 29,000 seats last year. If we sold the same number of seats this season, we’d have a 60-plus percent load factor. We are in communication with the airlines trying to get some fare sales, and working together with CBMR to try and get some deals to sell some more seats.”
Statewide, the numbers for Colorado Ski Country USA’s 22 member resorts are due for release next week. In an informal survey of its members, Ari Stiller-Shulman, Public Affairs Manager for CSCUSA, said members were claiming “overall visitation felt pretty consistent with last year.” Members reported the second week between Christmas and New Year’s was busier than the week before Christmas.
Shulman also said a lot of member resorts were having a strong showing in their ski schools, and that forward momentum was carrying into January, which is “Learn to Ski and Ride Month” and the time when resorts really push their ski and ride deals.
Because of relatively low bookings, January has been a focal point for the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association, and a press release distributed to target media and beyond early in the month highlighted a calendar of events and various deals from “Kids Fly Free” to lift ticket and lodging packages. Executive Director of the GCBTA Jane Chaney said they put out about 57 press releases a year, and the “January in the Rockies” release was picked up by eight media outlets, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas.
As far as the rest of the winter goes, Chaney said “I think, like most people, snow drives winter demand to a very large degree. We have continued to execute against a very targeted marketing plan. Our message is out there, and we’re procuring email source lists that allow us to target skiers in certain demographic areas. Snow will peak interest and the economy will have the affect it’s going to have.”
In Gunnison, the holidays were good to local lodges, many of which were packaging lift tickets with reasonable lodging prices, according to Gunnison Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Tammy Scott.
“The lodging properties felt they were busier this holiday season than last with skier traffic,” Scott said. “The Gunnison Getaway program is a lodging and lift ticket package that we provide primarily to drive-in visitors. What makes our package so nice is our lodging prices are lower, so we can package the same lift ticket price with lower lodging prices.”
In the wintertime, Gunnison probably represents the most economical value in the valley, according to Chaney. “It’s all about supply and demand; the farther you get from the ski area the cheaper lodging will be. The other things that Gunnison has [going for it] are that many of the lodges are national chain brands that can pull from corporate online booking engines and large call centers.”
“We’re still out there as a constant reaching the ideal customer profile for Gunnison-Crested Butte,” Chaney assured. “We know who they are and we are going to continue to reach them. Our efforts are not being curtailed by the lack of snow or economic influences.”
The economy is what it is, and there’s no silver bullet solution for filling the coffers this winter. Except for the white stuff—hopefully we get lots and lots of snow over the next couple of months.
