March was the only month this ski season where mountain town lodges turned a profit.
Analytics firm Destimetrics reports occupancy this March was almost the exact same as last year, but room rates were higher, giving ski town lodges a 4-percent revenue bump.
Experts say it would have been difficult – and potentially unhealthy – to keep pace with last ski season, when skyrocketing room rates were breaking revenue records almost every month.
“This is the normalization of data that started to show up last fall, where ‘normal’ is the absence of noise and extremes,” says Tom Foley with Destimetrics. “Frankly, it is what the industry needs: a breather from chaos and a chance to operate amid textbook conditions.”
Early predictions for summer lodging show more of the same. Early bookings are up slightly, May through September, but rates are not nearly as volatile as the past three years.
A room this coming August is 5-percent more than last year. That is the most extreme rate increase of summer.