By Ella Slade
Staff Writer
The Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board’s Oct. 1 meeting featured a presentation from Colorado Tourism Office Director Tim Wolfe, who provided an overview of recent tourism trends in both Pagosa Springs and the state as a whole, including that Pagosa Springs was a leader in overall occupancy revenue for 2024.
Wolfe also outlined Pagosa Springs’ partnership and relationship with the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO), a division of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
The presentation included a rundown of the current state of tourism in Pagosa Springs, an overview of the CTO’s mission to meet goals through statewide collaboration and some of the efficiencies and headwinds met in 2024.
“We look to empower the tourism industry, to inspire the world to explore Colorado respectfully and responsibly,” Wolfe said, adding that the office operates under three pillars: economic vitality, stewardship and industry leadership.
2024 tourism trend data
The CTO looks at total spending, tax revenue and jobs related to the tourism industry in order to provide interactive, county-specific data, as well as an annual Economic Impact of Travel on Colorado Report through its website, Wolfe explained. Users can pull data either by county or by legislator to look at trends throughout each decade.
“You can see how many jobs, tourism jobs, or tax revenues are created by county or by legislator, and that’s provided for you,” he said. “We do that for the entire industry.”
In 2024, Wolfe shared, Colorado generated $28.5 billion in visitor expenditure, $1.9 billion in tax revenue and more than 470,000 direct and indirect travel-related jobs.
International travel
International travel represents nearly 10 percent of Colorado’s tourism economy, Wolfe stated, and often includes high-value guests with longer stays.
Additionally, it is the highest intercoastal state tourism there is in the United States, according to CTO data, with Wolfe noting you have to be intentional to travel to Colorado and Pagosa Springs.
“We actually work in the Four Corners states, with New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, to do all kinds of travel itineraries to hit Pagosa Springs,” Wolfe added.
The office works with other states that also have international travel and passes information through to Visit Pagosa Springs Tourism Director Jennifer Green, who then identifies which tour operators actually book and which hotels are actually listed in itineraries for the region, he continued.
Since the pandemic, Wolfe explained, the number of international visitors has been up and down for the state, reaching 97 percent of 2019’s total in July 2025. The CTO also records data on the number of international travelers who visit Colorado, categorized by month and country of departure, since 2019.
“Mexico is really carrying the weight for Colorado; it’s one of our biggest markets in terms of total volume and visitation, but we also track these other countries as well to try to drive visitation to Colorado,” Wolfe said. “And, again, the key here is the tourism office empowers the tourism industry to inspire everybody to explore Colorado.”
Wolfe explained the state has seen a slight influx in the CTO’s international marketing budget over the last four years due to Economic Development Administration (EDA) funds.
Those funds run out in 2027, and the CTO goes back to its traditional budget, Wolfe noted.
“We’re a little bit concerned about the future of international [marketing] when you look at 2028 and 2029,” he added.
Efficiencies
In order to gauge its efficacy, Wolfe explained the CTO uses research agency SMARI to measure advertising effectiveness of both individual destinations and states.
“Nearly 3,000 different [Colorado] destinations are measured to figure out if their ads are effective or not, how their media spending is, so that we can see how well they’re doing with visitation,” he said.
Looking at the advertising impact in 2024-2025, Wolfe said, SMARI data found that the winter media return on investment (ROI) was the highest in the country for 2024, reaching an all-time high of $978 in winter visitor spending for every $1 invested in the media. Colorado’s media spend is the highest ever recorded for the winter program, with a significant increase in ROI over the past eight to nine years.
With a 28 percent budget increase and adjustments to this year’s winter media campaign, the CTO saw a dramatic increase in advertising effectiveness, he indicated.
“You can see that our ad effectiveness has dramatically increased in the past eight and nine years, and it’s the highest ever recorded by SMARI,” Wolfe said. “So, our office is doing a pretty good job of trying to do what we can.”
Between 2010 and 2019, Wolfe continued, the CTO received only five or six total awards.
“Now our office gets a number of awards every year on a national basis,” he said, with 10 awards received in 2024.
Domestic market share in decline
Despite the CTO’s national recognition and growing number of annual awards, Wolfe explained recent data found domestic overnight visitor market shares in decline. The state saw a drop from 2.3 percent to 1.8 percent of overnight domestic visitors between 2019 and 2025.
“We’re losing domestic market share visitation numbers as a state compared to the rest of the country,” he said. “We used to be right around 2.3 percent of overnight domestic visitors, and we’ve dropped to 1.9, so we’re still struggling to try to make sure that we’re getting our fair share of overnight visitors.”
Pagosa Springs leading state
Wolfe explained that, according to the STAR (Smith Travel Accommodations Report), an industry-standard hospitality performance report that the CTO collects annually, Pagosa Springs is a leader in overall hotel occupancy revenue for 2024.
“Colorado is down in overall occupancy and related revenue rates,” he continued, “But Pagosa Springs, along with Alamosa, is up 10 percent in occupancy points, which is leading the entire state in occupancy. So, congratulations to your entire community for your occupancy growth.”
He added the area is “far exceeding”regions across the entire state through August 2025 compared to 2024.
Lodgers’ tax trends and
occupancy
Wolfe pointed out that there are only 23 properties and 1,200 hotel rooms in Pagosa Springs reporting occupancy.
“There are some key players here that we would like to see that would report their data,” he said, noting they can’t see individual data from any property and pointing out The Springs Resort, one of Pagosa Springs’ largest hotels, doesn’t report.
Wolfe reported Pagosa Springs leading Colorado in occupancy growth in 2024, with a 10 percent growth in occupancy based on the reporting properties.
Wolfe noted he and Green are “a little bit handicapped” until they can get more” STAR data there.
He indicated the data could also help the lodgers detect trends and how they’re comparing to their competition.
Wolfe explained 57 percent of Pagosa Springs properties report their STAR data, compared with almost 80 percent in Denver, Wolfe added.
Wolfe noted they also look at short-term rental occupancy data, with the state down year to date.
Grants and partnership
highlights
For the winter of fiscal year 2025, Wolfe explained, the CTO partnered with Green’s local team to cooperate on a number of social and paid media campaigns, which were widely successful.
The partnership turned an investment of $27,500 into a $58,100 media value, according to CTO data.
“There was spend there between the partnerships, both our side and their side, and the campaign basically crushed it,” Wolfe said.
With 5 million impressions and 502,000 engagements at 5 cents each, the media campaign produced a 9.9 percent engagement rate. With the traditional average at 1.3 percent, Wolfe added, the CTO’s partnership with Pagosa Springs resulted in almost four to five times what is traditionally done.
The summer 2024 campaigns produced similar results, Wolfe continued, reaching four times the industry average for paid media engagement rates, and three to five times on the social media side.
Over the last two years, Wolfe explained, the CTO has seen a difference made by combination grants that highlight some of Pagosa Springs’ resorts and visitor experiences.
Examples include the fiscal year 2024 Tourism Marketing Grant of $40,000, which aims to promote the south central Colorado communities of Pagosa Springs and Alamosa to international audiences through a Bridging Regions marketing campaign, and the current fiscal year 2025 Tourism Marketing Grant of $49,999, aiming to elevate Pagosa Springs and Alamosa as desirable international travel destinations to audiences in the UK and Germany.
Colorado lodgers’ tax trends
As Colorado has no state lodgers’ tax, Wolfe noted, the CTO shares data with the governor’s office each year to justify the annual budget. Additionally, in the last couple of years, short-term rentals have increased their taxes dramatically over that of the lodgers.
“Additional funds have been used across the state of Colorado for housing, day care and doing a lot of different things for their communities as voted by the voters,” Wolfe said.
In total, the CTO’s 2024 report found that Colorado received $55 million from regional lodgers’ tax and visitors to fund community investments.
“It’s important to make sure that we’re marketing Colorado correctly, so that we can protect these investments in our community,” Wolfe said.
Other initiatives
Branding changes were among other recent efforts made by the CTO to increase visibility and visitation, Wolfe explained, shifting to an editorial model for vacation guides that allows individual destinations to explain what they are.
“AI is not going to pick up this type of advertising, but we will pick up this content in terms of trusted content when people are building out AI itineraries to travel to anywhere in Colorado,” he said. “So, this is done intentionally to try to drive as much views as possible and to also extend the shelf life of the vacation guides.”
Wolfe also announced the CTO’s Digital Passport Program, where users can get digital stamps from different Colorado experiences around the state, and collect them on the My Colorado app.
Additionally, Wolfe shared that drone shows will be replacing fireworks this year, honoring Colorado’s Indigenous communities through its animations, and including an individual two minutes of localized content for each show.
“We want to do a drone show in Pagosa Springs, and we’re waiting for which type of experience that your community wants to do, and then for Jen to tell us how they want to have it in the sky,” he said.
The drone shows are a collaborative effort with the America 250 - Colorado 150 Commission, established to jointly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States and Colorado’s 150th year as a state.
Wolfe noted the Commission has already approved Pagosa Springs as a location for the shows.
2026 event funding
In other business, the board discussed event funding for 2026, hearing from Green on funding application criteria, and how it can change or fall short based on exceptional circumstances, like construction and event impacts.
Green explained the board made a decision to fund more events this year, as it has not funded summer events in the past, but made exceptions this year due to specific needs. She also proposed creating a subcommittee not affiliated with events to move toward grant funding and reduce potential conflicts of interest.
In 2025, the event budget increased to $140,000, not including the $16,000 allocated for Fourth of July fireworks, Green explained, with a budget of $150,000 for 2026.
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