Chamber stats show winter was off, summer projecting flat

But it should be busy from now through Arts Festival!

By Mark Reaman

While visits to the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Visitors Centers were slower this past winter compared to last by about 7%, executive director Heather Leonard said summer would be busy, “no matter what.” True that.

In an annual report to the Crested Butte town council on June 16, Leonard said the staff is gearing up for the heat of the season not only at the Four-Way location in Crested Butte and the transit center in Mt. Crested Butte, but also for so-called “mobile visitors centers” that are set up at events like some Alpenglow and Music on the Mountain. The idea is to go out to where the visitors are instead of waiting for them to find the Chamber.

The summer forecast Leonard presented indicated June and August are pacing behind last year while July and September were looking about flat with 2024. “Uncertainty continues to shape visitor behavior,” she reported. “Recent reports by TAPP (Tourism and Prosperity Partnership) show that visitation for 2024 dropped to 660,000 from a high of 825,000 in 2022…While lodging rates have held steady or increased over the last year, a shakier economy may cause drops in rates, which will drive last-minute visitation. We are still anticipating that it will be a busy summer, with late June through Arts Festival weekend at peak occupancy, and preparing accordingly,” she said. 

“Maybe it’s not heads in beds, but it’s definitely campers in campsites,” Leonard said.

She said the Chamber would be offering more retail potential at the Four-Way along with free WIFI. The goal is to attract more traffic to the Chamber. A new website is being designed for the organization as well and is slated to launch in July.

Winter stats

For winter, Leonard’s recap showed 10,671 visitors went to the visitor’s centers, most of them in Mt. Crested Butte. While that was a 7% decrease, she postulated that about 18,500 fewer visitors came to the valley as a whole last winter. That is a 9% drop. “Despite the downturn, the Visitors Center team remained a vital presence, offering high-quality service and support throughout the season,” her report stated. The Crested Butte site was open 138 days versus 127 for Mt. CB.

While there was some “natural staff turnover” with personnel, several new team members were hired for both Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte and the starting the wage was raised to $20/hour. “We are evaluating staffing as we go into next winter to consider how we can provide greater depth of coverage at Mt. Crested Butte, which consistently sees higher winter visitor traffic, particularly in the mornings and evenings, as the ski area opens and closes,” she said.

Demographics

Leonard provided a series of graphs detailing the demographics of visitors. The largest age group that used the centers were between the ages of 55 to 64 accounting for 24% of the visits. Some between 18 and 24 years old put down their phones to ask a question of a physical person but those only accounted for 8% of the visits.

Colorado visitors provided most of the visits at 39% followed by Texas at 13%. Only 2% of the visitors came from New England.

International visitation continues to hold a fairly low percentage in overall visitation — just above 2% of total visitors are from outside the U.S. but as Leonard reported, they came from a variety of countries. Canada topped the list at 16% (of the 2%) while England came in second at 13% and Germany at 11%. There were several one-percenters including a few people from Thailand, Spain, India, Singapore, Poland and Malaysia. 

Other Chamber news

Leonard said she attends TAPP and STOR (Sustainable Tourism and Outdoor Recreation) meetings to ensure the Chamber is communicating the same messaging as well as provide direct feedback on what they are hearing from visitors.

While meetings were held between the Crested Butte organization, TAPP and the Gunnison Chamber to discuss a possible merger, she said “the consensus was that, due to significant differences between the towns and business communities and a lack of cost savings, consolidation was not the right path forward at this time.” However, all are committed to working more closely together in strategic ways and plan to reconvene this fall.

With some 26 businesses dropping their membership and nine new ones joining the Chamber since essentially the start of the year, the current membership was at 296 businesses.

“We remain committed to supporting local businesses, welcoming visitors with warmth and knowledge, and strengthening our partnerships across the Gunnison Valley,” concluded Leonard’s summary in her council report.

Chamber also chats with Mt. CB

By Kendra Walker

In a similar Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce presentation to the Mt. Crested Butte town council, executive director Heather Leonard shared the sentiment that the Chamber plans to focus on more opportunities to interact with people outside the visitor centers and better connect with businesses this summer. 

She told the council that they have a kiosk ready for the Mt. CB transit center visitors center and are working on implementing the technology and finding a way to secure it without getting damaged. Because the Four-Way visitors center sees more traffic than the Mountaineer Square transit center location during the summer, Leonard says the Chamber is focusing on educating and connecting folks to the Mt. CB businesses such as the bike shops through that Four-Way “gateway” location. 

She also shared that the Chamber is working on creating a new 501(c)(3) Chamber Foundation that will be focused on education and leadership development. The Chamber is currently a 501(c)(6), Leonard explained, which are geared toward trade associations, business leagues and professional organizations. “We want to be able to help businesses by offering scholarships and removing that funding barrier,” she said. “The goal is to help our entire community to be more economically vibrant.”

The council appreciated the update, and also asked Leonard to look into the possibility of working with Vail Resorts/CBMR to bring back the merchant pass program that allowed businesses to retain ownership of passes to provide and transfer to their employees. They also suggested working with the CB Nordic Center on a similar program. Leonard agreed the program had been an asset to local businesses in the past and said she would look into it. 

The council also approved the town sponsoring a trailhead porta potty through the Chamber’s program aimed at providing portable toilets at popular trailheads to augment the existing Forest Service gravity toilets. “The Forest Service has recently informed us that due to budget cuts, they will be unable to pump the existing gravity toilets,” said town manager Carlos Velado in a memo to the council. “Once the toilets reach capacity, they will be locked and taken out of service.”