Estes Park works to save tourist season

ESTES PARK — The tourist season in Estes Park generally ends with a surge of visitors who head to the mountains to gaze at slopes bathed in aspen gold and listen for the bugling of majestic, mating elk. Apparently an early-season snowfall hasn’t decreased that enthusiasm — and the visitor dollars it brings.

“A lot of people were worried that the snow was going to impact the leaves, but it actually may have hastened it a bit — that beautiful, vibrant yellow,” said Donna Carlson, president of the revitalized Estes Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber and other business-support entities in the village at the eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, whose economy was staggered this year by pandemic-related restrictions, are pitching in to boost the autumn “shoulder season” and help the town recover from a loss in annual sales tax revenue that still exceeded 15% by the end of July.

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The town had seen 14% and 22% gains in revenue in January and February, respectively, but when COVID-19 curbs took hold, including a springtime shutdown of both the park and overnight lodgings, the figures plummeted. Sales-tax revenue for May was down 33.57% from the same month in 2019, but the deficits had fallen to 21.61% in June and 16.35% in July, the most recent month for which figures are available.

“That’s much better than expected,” Carlson said. “You can certainly see a progression. August will be even better than that, and I’ve heard from people that September will be amazing.”

Adam Shake, president and chief executive of the Estes Park Economic Development Corp., had a simple explanation for the surge: “People were locked away for so long,” he said. “They wanted to get outdoors and spend money.”

“For certain stores it wasn’t as good as past years but for other stores it was better,” Carlson said. “It’s amazing to me how good a season it was, and that we were able to stay open and stay safe because we all complied with wearing the darned masks that we don’t like to wear.

“Most stores will tell me that 90% of the people are completely compliant. They understand that this is really the only way we can stay open. They appreciate the fact that we are being really diligent and vigilant to enforce safety because we want to stay open and our stores need to stay open, so we were willing to do whatever might contribute to that effort.

“The people who were defiant are just kind of representative of that percentage of humankind that doesn’t want to be shepherded,” Carlson said. “It’s unfortunate that this virus has polarized people and caused some to be uncharacteristically mean. One store owner got cornered by a guy who didn’t want to wear a mask, and he said, ‘I don’t like them either, but I’m sorry; you’re going to have to leave if you won’t.’ But it’s a small percentage, really. You notice walking up and down Elkhorn Avenue; even though masks are not required outside, 60 to 70% of people have them on anyway.

“Even when we started to see the case counts rise in August, she said, “we were expecting the county to revoke our variance, and it never did. We saw the curve flatten again, and we’ve been able to stay open.”

Of the businesses Shake surveyed, 80% have experienced a decline in profitability this year, 82% have created no new jobs and 74% furloughed employees. Even so, he said, during the height of the crisis from March 16 to June 20, the EDC served 348 local businesses, which impacted 806 employees. It had more than 3,500 individual conversations with business owners and helped 362 of them get $30.5 million in Small Business Administration Payroll Protection Program loans. Meanwhile, the town gave the EDC and chamber $300,000 to administer business-relief funds.

The EDC also kept operating its Entrepreneurial Center, a six-month program for startups and scale-ups. This year, Shake said, it helped create five new businesses, two business pivots, two new business products and two new nonprofits as well as creating 10 jobs and helping retain three.

According to Kevin Benes, the town’s chief financial officer, Estes Park saw a nearly 80% reduction in year-over-year overnight stays during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of which hit its peak in April and May.

“Starting in June, Estes Park began to see recovery, but the return of guests was not in the traditional pattern,” he said in an email. “Guests have been staying longer than previous years and have been seeking standalone units much more than traditional lodging properties.” Those units generally have a higher daily rate, he said.

Occupancy in July was down only about 10% from 2019, he said, and “we are finding that some property-management organizations are having record-breaking years while traditional lodging continues to struggle.”

The loss of group business hurt overnight lodging numbers, Carlson said, but “many of our popular places have been busy and continue to be booked into October, and many are looking forward to the timed entry to the park ending Oct. 12.”

To enforce social distancing to keep the coronavirus from spreading, Rocky Mountain National Park instituted a timed-entry reservation system through the recreation.gov website, and not being able to enter the park at will did rankle some visitors, she said.

“Many lodges did get negative feedback and cancellations from guests because of the timed-entry program,” Carlson said. “If we were to enter another summer season with this program, I’d like to engage in a stronger communication campaign to make sure our guests are prepared.”

In fact, she added, “the number of timed-entry complaints were higher than complaints about the masks. There were very few people who didn’t know. I’ve done everything in my power to communicate to our lodging community that we really recommend when people make a reservation, you send them a link to make a reservation to the park too.”

The annual leaf-peeping pilgrimage should help boost the numbers, she said, as well as an extension of annual “ElkFest” activities — even though this time a lot of it will be virtual. What Carlson called Elkfest 2.0 includes some guided activities to do without any public gatherings, including a walking tour, virtual vendor marketplace, scavenger hunt for families, a giveaway of a tower of taffy, a photography contest and a bugling contest.

Of the businesses surveyed by the EDC, 36% anticipate negative sales growth in 2021, and Shake noted that “2021 is really going to be the indicator about how our businesses did.”

But for Shake and Carlson, boosting business for the end of this year is Job 1.

“We’re trying hard to extend the shoulder season,” Shake said. “We want to extend the outdoor patio season for our restaurants through fall and winter. With under 60% occupancy allowed, a lot of them have moved outside and put up tents, but when it’s cold outside, people aren’t going to want to sit outside. So we’re trying to find financial streams and grants to help winterize some of our outdoor patios with tents that are snow-bearing and heating. You can’t do open flames under a tent, he said, so infrared heaters might be the answer, as well as blowers that force heat in through baffles in the tent sides.”

They’re also looking to lure restaurant delivery services from the Front Range urban corridor to serve the mountain community.