According to this chart from the City of Aspen, May’s Aspen operations had ups and downs by industry.
According to recent reports, the local economy is starting to soften in the retail and lodging sectors, while the real estate sector continues to advance.
May retail sales in Aspen showed a slight increase from May 2021 and June lodging reservations were flat compared to June 2021, yet total home sales volume in Pitkin County for May was up 15.2% from the same month last year. Those were the latest numbers available for each sector on Tuesday.
According to the city’s monthly tax consumption report released last week, retail sales in Aspen rose 1.8% in May to total $41.1 million. In the first five months of 2022, total retail sales were $490.4 million, up a whopping 49.6% from the same period last year. But Pete Strecker, the city’s Treasury Director, noted in last week’s report that he expects this trend to slow due to the Russia-Ukraine war and recent Federal Reserve rate hikes.
“Given ongoing economic headwinds — stemming from the war in Ukraine and exacerbated by domestic monetary policy measures taken by the Federal Reserve — further moderation is expected for the remainder of the fiscal year,” said Strecker.
The city’s sales tax receipts in May, one of the slower months of the year, were 2% higher than in May 2021. While that’s an improvement on paper, Strecker cautioned that the statistical increase has been skewed by inflation.
“While this is growth that should trickle down into taxable sales, taking into account inflationary pressures of around 8%, one can conclude that monthly economic activity was indeed below that of May 2021,” Strecker wrote.
June reservation numbers, according to Aspen Skiing Co.
Aspen’s occupancy rate was 53.8% in June, compared to 63.4% in June 2021, the report said.
However, another report released Monday put Aspen’s June occupancy rate at 71.9%, tops among the state’s ski resorts that are also major summer attractions.
The average daily rate of $701.09 in Aspen in June was by far the most expensive in Colorado, according to the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report commissioned by the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association. According to the report, Telluride’s ADR was the second most expensive in the state at $444.29.
The report didn’t include Snowmass Village, which Skico said had fallen from 47.6% occupancy in June 2021 to 42.7% last month. The Skico report noted that the Viewline and Wildwood properties closed for renovations in June 2021. Because occupancy reports provide percentages based on the number of rooms available at the time, the Skico report states that they “do not tell an accurate story of how many rooms were actually occupied compared to the previous year.”
The number of occupied rooms at Snowmass, according to the report, “is significantly higher than last June.”
“While hotels are seeing lower occupancy percentages as indicated in these reports, retail, restaurant and activity businesses should see more visitors this year than last year,” the report said.
July shows an occupancy rate of 60.9% between Aspen and Snowmass, about the same as this time last year, the report said.
Overall, “summer is up 38.2% versus 46.9% last year,” the report said, adding that the total number of rooms booked this summer is ahead of this point last year. It’s the occupancy rate that’s gone down. “If the filter is applied to the total number of rented rooms, summer has gotten a little quicker compared to last year. This trend in occupancy versus total occupied rooms will continue this summer and through winter and there are hotels that are likely to be out of stock next winter as well.”
In terms of real estate, May’s total sales volume in Pitkin County was $413.4 million, compared to $358.8 million in May 2021, according to data from Land Title Guarantee Co.
Total sales volume for January through May was nearly $1.7 billion, up 12.8% from nearly $1.5 million in the first five months of 2021.
In Aspen, the city collected nearly $11 million in property taxes for its housing funds in the first six months of the year after all open market sales were completed, surpassing the $8.3 million it collected from January 2021 through May 2021 by 32.3%. .
The portion of the Wheeler Opera House’s RETT used for the city’s venue and other arts organizations brought in $5.7 million in the first half of this year, up 31.9% from the $4.3 million from January to May 21, according to the city’s consumption report.
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