Statewide Hotel Market Shows Improvement

For statewide hotels, the overall occupancy rate rose to 57.7%, compared with 56% at year-end 2004, according to the report authored by Bob Benton of Robert S. Benton & Associates. In December, the occupancy rate rose to 46.3% from 42.3% in December 2003. December marked the seventh consecutive month of improving occupancies. Indeed, only two months last year--May and February--failed to best the same month in 2003.

Average daily room rates performed almost as well. The average room rate last year hit $96.65, compared with $95.44 in 2003. The average room rate in December stood at $113.45, while it was $106.93 in December 2003. Only two months last year--May and June--showed a drop in average room rates.

The report shows that the most expensive hotel rooms last year were found in the glitzy ski resort of Aspen. The average room rate last year in Aspen was $308.17, the only submarket to break the $300 barrier. In 2003, the average room rate in Aspen was $292.15. In December, Aspen had by far the highest average room rate at $474.65.

Vail was a distant second to Aspen in 2004, with an average room rate of $214.97, compared with $200.03 in 2003. In December, the average room rate in Vail was $302.15.

In Colorado Springs, the second-largest city in the state, the overall room rate last year stood at $73.04, compared with $70.61 in 2003. The occupancy rate in Colorado Springs last year, however, fell slightly to 59.3% from 60.1% in 2003. The ski resorts, by contrast, saw an increase in occupancy rates as well as in room rates last year.

Aspen ended the year with an overall occupancy rate of 59.2% compared with 53.1% in 2003. And Vail's hotels in 2004 saw their overall occupancy rate rise to 54% from 46.3% in 2003.