Breckenridge Tourism Office president Lucy Kacy's recent travel outlook presentations have all opened with the same graphic -- a cartoon of a little girl dragging a red, deflating balloon labeled "confidence," a reference to consumer confidence.
Amid President Trump's erratic imposition, or threats of imposition, of tariffs, she said a decline in consumer confidence has been one of the only stable indicators the industry can use to determine what upcoming travel seasons look like.
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Data from The Conference Board, the organization that determines the Consumer Confidence Index, that Kay verified the morning of May 1 demonstrated consumer confidence is down to pandemic-era levels. Additionally, the outlook for the next six months estimates consumer confidence will be down to 2011 levels.
"We think there's going to be a recession coming soon," Kay said, noting the index recently hit a level economists consider to be indicative of a recession. "So that's pretty concerning."
She shared data with those at the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments Regional Economic Summit May 1 demonstrating nights booked in Breckenridge for this summer are down 16% and Summit County is down 11%. She highlighted a silver lining from global travel intelligence agency MMGY's recent outlook which showed "the intent and enthusiasm to travel is really high." She said during periods of economic uncertainty, research shows people prioritize travel over other expenses and the industry is more recession-resistant than others.
Kay said her industry also keeps a close eye on airlines, and things don't have a rosy outlook on that front. She said airlines are already cutting both domestic and international summer flights. Some even stopped putting out their typical business forecast given current economic uncertainty and attitudes toward traveling to the U.S., she said. She said the tangible impacts of this on places like Breckenridge can include shortened length of stay from visitors. Additionally people are waiting longer than they typically would to book their Breckenridge trips. This could mean bookings won't be down 16% by the time summer is actually here; Kay said she anticipates a decrease closer to 5-10%.
She said Breckenridge's summer tourism has been "sliding a little bit for each of the last three years," and while the tendency of many may be to scale back, her office is "keeping our foot on the gas pedal."
She said her office asked for an incremental $100,000 from the town a while ago, and that's being deployed now. She said they are also pushing forward planned expenditures for the fall into summer.
"We know we have to hit July ... you can triple October, but if you lose July, you haven't done the community a service," she said.
Kay was joined by Colorado Tourism Office Deputy Director Jill Corbin and Northwest Colorado Council of Governments executive director Jon Stacey for a conversation after her presentation about the current state of tourism.
Stacey wanted know about what role Vail Resorts plays in supporting Breckenridge's tourism economy and what the current relationship between the town and the corporation is.
Kay, a former Vail Resorts employee herself, said the relationship between the two has "varied" over the years. She referenced friction over the 2016 introduction of the lift-ticket tax as a point in time where there was tension, but she said "today, they are our partners."
"I think a little bit of what happens is the people that are (local employees with) boots on the ground, they get it, for people that are further away, some of the regional directors and certainly the corporate directors, are not as close to what's happening in the community," she said.
Corbin shed light on where the state government and governor's heads are currently at with tourism, noting concerns about a loss of international travelers to the state. She said the governor's office is particularly looking to keep relationships strong with the nation's neighboring countries, Mexico and Canada. She said the Gov. Jared Polis recently hosted a "Colorado loves Canada Day" and a "Colorado-Mexico Friendship Day."
"We are trying to distinguish ourselves as a very welcoming, safe place for international travelers," she said.
Both Corbin and Kay expressed more worry over the U.S. tourism economy than Colorado's tourism economy.
Corbin said the tourism industry in the U.S. as a whole, in 2015, had a surplus of $50 billion from the international traveler coming to the U.S. Today, that's been flipped on its head, and $50 billion of American money is going overseas.
Kay has said that Breckenridge has never relied on international tourism in the summer -- it relies more on domestic travelers, so that currently isn't a major concern for summer 2025.
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