2019 Goals & First Quarter Sales Tax Revenues

Here at Visit Estes Park the team is striving to improve the sustainability of tourism demand to Estes Park, tourism is our largest industry and is vital to the quality of life in our region.  Our goal in 2019 is to improve our shoulder and winter visitation seasons and maintain the summer season and get visitors to plan ahead so they can have a better visitor experience.

With that goal in mind, I am pleased to report that first quarter tourism related sales tax revenues improved substantially over 2018, and many of our lodging businesses are reporting higher than anticipated April and May reservations, indicating a strong second quarter outlook.

Why does this matter?  By improving visitor demand during our winter and shoulder months we are helping to ensure a stronger job market, adding additional tax revenues to pay for road improvements, police, fire fighters, and services for the local community.  Indeed, if you took away tourism’s impact to our region, we would have a very different looking community that would not have nearly the number of amenities and businesses that local folks enjoy.  Our community center would have been much smaller, our town services would be much further scaled back. We would not have a hospital the size that we do.  Only because we are attracting visitors to the area, are we able to prosper at the level we currently see.

Let’s celebrate together!  I would like to recognize our dedicated and tireless team who work hard every day to provide innovative marketing to promote our destination sustainably.  We live here and care deeply about our region. Our team is helping our community to remain viable and strong in the competitive tourism market, and it shows, as a direct result of their high quality of work!