Last summer was a record year for visitors in Park City and while businesses may miss the high foot traffic this year, Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff says every year can’t be a record year. She sees this summer as more of a normal year.
“We had some real record growth in 2022. And naturally, we're just starting to see some softening,” she said. “I think it's maybe not reasonable to think that we can continually have double-digit growth year over year, month over month and we're just starting to see some normalizing.”
She says the softer summer is something mountain towns across the west are also experiencing. Here in Park City, overnight visitation in July was down about 9% compared to last year but room rates were up about 4% to about $340 a night, on average.
August also looks soft. Wesselhoff reports that visitor nights are down about 10% but the average daily rate is up about 15% from a year ago.
“Overall, in the last 6 months, average occupancy was down probably about 7% and rates were up about 9%,” she said. “So, we're looking at this little bit of a teeter totter of less overnight visitors paying a little bit more for their stays, which is impacting our tax receipts in really every tourism-related category.”
The latest sales tax numbers are for June. Wesselhoff reports that sales tax dollars are up about 2% and the RAP or Recreation Arts and Parks tax was up by about 1%. But she says other tax revenues have dropped from 2022.
“Where we're seeing some softening is particularly in that transient room tax collection, that was down 8% for June,” she said. “Restaurant tax softened as well - down about 6%. But what I want to remind the listeners here is that this is really flattening out - some normalizing. When we look at local sales tax for last year, last year overall local sales taxes were up 17%, transient room taxes were up 44%, restaurant taxes were up 30% and the recreation, arts and parks tax was up 22%.”
Wesselhoff thinks the drop can be attributed to a leveling out following COVID. The Sustainable Tourism Plan was just rolled out this year, so she doesn’t think it has had an impact yet, but in the years to come, she believes it will.
“We're just at the very beginning stages,” Wesselhoff said. “And we are starting to see different messaging. A lot of it is around education - helping disburse visitation, helping move visitors away from overcrowded trailheads. We’re targeting a very high-end consumer, a consumer who cares about our values. But we're also spending a lot of money marketing and trying to attract visitors. And I think that's the important thing about sustainable tourism is recognizing that it's all about balance. And it's trying to really protect a thriving economy, while also balancing some of the potential negative impacts of visitation to our community.”
As part of that messaging, Wesselhoff says they’ve rolled out sustainability toolkits to area lodging properties. These kits communicate the chamber’s sustainability initiatives, goals and values to visitors as well as the front staff.
The chamber’s meetings and business team has also been busy this year. She says 116 groups have visited Park City hotels this summer bringing in almost $9 million in economic impact.
