Colorado Springs hotels gain as group travel weakens
First-half 2026 data showed a 5.43% increase in revenue per available room, an 8% decline in group room nights and fewer domestic tours.
Colorado Springs hotels posted stronger first-half results in 2026 even as group room nights fell about 8% and domestic tour activity dropped sharply, according to a Visit Colorado Springs presentation to City Council.
Revenue per available room rose 5.43% from 2025 to about $70.70, while lodgers and auto rental tax collections were slightly higher than in the comparable 2025 period. The presentation described occupancy as strong but did not provide specific percentages.
Convention-related economic impact increased despite the decline in group room nights, Visit Colorado Springs said. The organization attributed that increase to higher room rates, inflation and increased meeting costs, including food, beverages and audiovisual services. It did not provide exact room-night totals or convention-impact figures.
Domestic tours were weaker. A large, unnamed tour operator booked 17 tours in June 2025, generating an estimated economic impact of nearly $2.5 million. The operator did not book a comparable number of tours in 2026, but the presentation did not identify the operator, provide a 2026 booking count or quantify any economic loss.
April Perez, Visit Colorado Springs’ director of finance, said she was not aware the operator had stopped coming and would need to follow up. The tours were described primarily as motor-coach trips, along with some family reunions. The record does not establish why the bookings changed, so the $2.5 million is an estimate of the operator’s 2025 contribution, not a confirmed 2026 loss.
Wildfire smoke was raised as a possible factor, but its effect was not measured. Alexia Veneration, the organization’s director of communications, said fires, smoke and national coverage suggesting “Colorado’s on fire” could have discouraged visitors who did not investigate local conditions. She said the perception likely affected outdoor attractions to some degree. The presentation did not separate wildfire effects from other causes or show how outdoor-attraction or motor-coach activity changed.
Visit Colorado Springs also reported a 140% year-over-year increase in its visibility in large language models and 2.1 million impressions on Google’s generative AI over roughly the previous month and a half. The organization said nearly half of searches across industries now end without a click because users receive answers directly from AI overviews or language models.
The organization plans to launch a redesigned website in February 2027, with tools for search, trip itineraries, neighborhoods and events. It said the site will be structured for both human visitors and AI tools, including through schema markup and categorized information.
The public materials reviewed do not disclose the redesign’s cost, vendor, procurement method or dedicated funding. Visit Colorado Springs’ transparency page lists city-contract and financial information, but no redesign-specific amount was identified. The organization also did not provide targets for additional visitors, bookings, room nights, length of stay or return on investment.
Visit Colorado Springs cautioned that some tourism figures may change as businesses submit bookings after the fact. A final comparison will be needed to determine the full scale of the changes in group travel and domestic tours.