Colorado tourism sets records for visitation, spending for 5th year in row

For the fifth straight year, Colorado set all-time records for total visitors, visitor spending and tax generation in 2015, welcoming 77.7 million visitors who spent $19.1 billion and generated $1.13 billion in state and local tax revenue, according to figures released Wednesday by the Colorado Tourism Office.

The state posted a 31 percent increase in visitation, nearly double the 16 percent growth in travel nationally, since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009.

The announcement included findings from a collection of studies detailing the impact of Colorado’s tourism industry during 2015.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Prioritizing mental health in hospice care

Prioritizing mental health support alongside physical comfort, Pathways hospice care aims to enhance the quality of life for patients and their families during one of life's most challenging transitions.

“The numbers speak for themselves, proving that our state is wise to invest in tourism promotion, and that our innovative marketing initiatives attract visitors who inject more than $1.1 billion into state and local tax coffers,” said Cathy Ritter, director of the Colorado Tourism Office, in a prepared statement. “It is clear that Colorado’s marketing campaign is not only inspiring travelers, but driving healthy gains in business earnings and job growth.”

According to a report titled “Colorado Travel Impacts 2015” prepared by Dean Runyan Associates, two-thirds of the total was spent by people who stayed overnight in paid accommodations such as hotels, motels, rented condos, campgrounds, RV parks and bed-and-breakfasts. The state’s total travel expenditures increased by 3 percent from 2014, outpacing national spending growth, which remained flat year over year.

According to the report, the state’s travel industry generated $1.13 billion in local and state tax revenues in 2015, an increase of 6.8 percent from 2014.  To replace those visitor taxes would have required an additional $207 tax payment from each of Colorado’s 5.46 million residents.

Visitor spending also spurred job creation, according to the tourism office. In 2015, the travel industry directly supported 160,000 jobs, a 3 percent increase over 2014, creating earnings of more than $5.5 billion in 2015, a 7.8 percent increase over 2014.

According to a report by Longwoods International, the state’s most valuable travel segment — marketable leisure trips — reached an all-time high of 17.1 million, a 6 percent increase over 2014. Those trips, unlike business travel or visits to friends and family, represent travelers who have a choice of destinations and thus can be influenced by marketing.

“Colorado once again significantly outpaced the nation in travel and tourism growth in 2015,” said Michael Erdman, senior vice president of Longwoods International, “Marketable leisure travel to Colorado also rose at a much greater rate than this type of travel nationwide, which can be directly attributed to the Colorado Tourism Office’s marketing efforts to lure visitors to stay longer and spend more.”

Denise Miller, executive vice president of Strategic Marketing and Research Insight, said her organization’s research revisited the question of how legal marijuana influenced Colorado travelers. In keeping with other studies over the past three years, the majority of Colorado’s targeted travelers age 25 and older, a total of 64 percent, said legal marijuana had no influence on their decision to visit. Another 14 percent said the availability of marijuana negatively influenced their interest in visiting Colorado, although they visited anyway. The remaining 23 percent said the availability of marijuana positively influenced their decision to visit. Overall, only 11 percent visited a dispensary and just 4 percent said the ability to visit a dispensary motivated their trip.

Travelers ages 25 to 34 were the most likely age group to report that marijuana positively influenced their decision to visit, while those 55 and older were most likely to say they were negatively influenced.

The full reports are online at industry.colorado.com/research.