Slow summer

Slow summer
Tourism should be a community effort

August 16, 2001

Mesa Verde’s visitation statistics are down 15 percent from July 1999, the most recent comparable period. (Last year, fires closed the park for much of the month.)

The statistics confirmed what tourism-oriented businesses in the Valley already knew: Not as many people have coming to Southwestern Colorado, nor to other national parks around the area. There are several fairly good reasons for that.

The economy is not as strong as it has been in past years. There’s less discretionary income distributed among fewer people, and those who do have it may be spending it cautiously. The president’s tax prebate checks didn’t arrive in time for many people to spend on summer travel.

Gasoline prices, while down now, were rising last spring and predicted to peak above $2/gallon when travelers were making their vacation plans. Air fares were rising accordingly. Because this area is a destination that’s not particularly easy to reach, itunderstandable that some people would pick other vacation spots closer to home.

Another important factor is the cyclical nature of tourism. There are years when ruins are in fashion and years when everyone wants to go to the beach. That’s the way it is; tourism officials work hard to counteract it.

There are also, however, a couple of bad reasons.

Nationwide publicity about last summer’s fires made it look as thought all of Mesa Verde was charred. That’s not so; much of it looks as it has for years. Those areas that did burn possess a stark beauty that awes visitors. The resulting lessons in fire ecology are fascinating. And it’s not as though the area was a rain forest before the fire; vegetation was sparse then, and now it’s only slightly sparser, with lush new growth springing up in surprising places.

Local tourism officials have done a good job of publicizing those facts, along with information about the area’s numerous other attractions, but without the tourism-promotion money that the state formerly spent to attract visitors to the state, their challenges are great. Perhaps Larry Wiese’s proposal to put a cliff dwelling on the state’s quarter will help potential visitors focus on the Ancestral Puebloan culture once again, but that’s a long shot and won’t happen to 2006 at best.

Another issue is those signs that say, "No national monument." What do they say to visitors driving through? That we don’t have one? That’s a little misleading. That we have one but some local residents are pretending we don’t? That we’re discouraging people from visiting it? Ouch.

Tourism benefits this community in far-reaching ways, and for that reason, it ought to be a community effort. Attracting visitors, extending their stays, offering attractive products and services, just smiling at people we meet on the street — those are all ways to help Montezuma County survive a tourism downturn.

Southwestern Colorado is a fun place to visit, filled with upbeat, interesting people. That’s an important image to hold in our minds, as we welcome the thousands of visitors who do come and who can go home and tell their friends about us.