The Political Orientation of a Destination is Shaping What Visitors See and Who Might Visit
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All signs point to strong demand for winter ski travel – but are we ready?
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But manager Jim Morrison canât say why, exactly.
âOf course our business is down,â he told the News&Guide. âItâs just too difficult to say how much is purely affidavit driven, COVID driven, or snow driven. Itâs pretty evident that people are willing to risk traveling in COVID environments, even at a high risk level.â
Why hotels in the Roaring Fork Valley are seeing so much less traffic than those in resort towns like Jackson Hole is a central question in an ongoing debate in Pitkin County. Health officials there have reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic in two ways that health officials in Teton County have not: by requiring visitors to fill out a form confirming theyâve tested negative before arriving in Aspen and shutting down indoor dining when cases peaked in early January.
Alex Hager / Aspen Public Radio
The pandemic took a heavy toll on Aspen’s tourism industry during the December holidays, usually the airport’s busiest time of year. In the two-week period around Christmas, the number of arriving passengers at Aspen-Pitkin County airport was down 53% from the year before.
During the same winter holiday period in 2019-2020, the airport recorded 28,000 arrivals. This year, that number was down to about 13,000.
The number of commercial flights was only down by 20%, but arriving aircraft are carrying fewer passengers than normal.
“There’s still a lot of flights coming in, but they’re not full,” said Caroline Bonynge, the airport’s director of operations. “In years prior, we were seeing full flights, but now we’re seeing flights with half that capacity coming in.”