Hospitality & Tourism  August 19, 2022

Overnight occupancy, revenue show recovery from pandemic

Continued recovery from pandemic-era restrictions is showing up across the board for Colorado’s hotels and inns, as occupancy rates rose across the board.

According to the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association’s July report released today, an average of 76.9% of rooms were filled statewide during July. For the first seven months of 2022, overnight accommodations posted an average 65.4% occupancy rate, compared with 55.4% for the same period in 2021 as COVID-19 restrictions were beginning to be lifted. The average nightly room rate across the state was a penny shy of $200 in July and $182.21 for the year to date, compared with just $146.15 for the first seven months of 2021.

The trend was evident across the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado as well.

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Boulder averaged 78.5% occupancy in July and 66.4% for the first seven months of 2022, with average nightly rates of $221.28 and $188.94, respectively, well ahead of the 52.8% and $149.80 posted for the same period in 2021. It was the same story along the U.S. Highway 36 corridor between Boulder and Denver, where 77.9% of rooms were occupied on an average night in July and 64.1% for the first seven months of 2022, compared with 49.4% and $106.38 for the first seven months of 2021.

Cities along the northern Front Range echoed the trend as well.

Greeley led the pack in July with an $84.1% average nightly occupancy rate, boosting its seven-month average of 72.3% and surpassing the 66.8% for the first seven months of 2021. Nightly rates in the Weld County seat averaged $112.93, and its year-to-date average was 2 cents shy of $100 for the first seven months of 2021, up from $92.68 for January through July 2021.

Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins averaged 79.2%, 75.3% and 74.5% nightly occupancy, respectively, in July, and all showed year-to-date averages well above the same period in 2021. Longmont’s 66.4% occupancy for the first seven months of 2022 soared past its 47.7% figure for the same period in 2021. Loveland averaged 65.6% occupancy for the period, up from 59.6% for the same time in 2021. For Fort Collins, it was 60.2% for the first seven months of 2021, up from 56% in the same period of 2021.

Of those three cities, Fort Collins topped the average July room rate at $158.11, followed by Loveland at $147.18 and Longmont at $147.08. For the year to date, Fort Collins’ nightly rates averaged $134.69, up from $121.48 a year earlier; Loveland was at $128.05, up from $116.12, and Longmont averaged $125.61, up from $105.74.

The tourism-dependent Larimer County town of Estes Park, at the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, was an outlier in both positive and negative ways. Its average occupancy rate for July of a whopping 87.8% and average July room rate of $261.51 led the Northern Colorado pack by far, but just 51.4% of its rooms were filled for the first seven months of 2022, down slightly from 52.1% in the same period of 2021. Room rates averaged $204.63 for the period this year, up 18 cents from the first seven months of 2021.

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