The slow and steady cultural and economic shifts underway in mountain communities were amplified coming out of the pandemic as new residents arrived, tourists flocked, real estate prices soared and local workers scrambled for housing. 

A new survey of 4,000 people in Eagle, Grand, Pitkin, Routt and Summit counties quantifies communities in flux as full-time residents — both renters and homeowners — part-time residents, elected officials and second homeowners adjust to resort economies that are shifting away from a sole reliance on tourists. 

The community survey commissioned by the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments and the Colorado Association of Ski Towns — and conducted by a group of veteran tourism economy pulse-takers known as the Insights Collective — is a benchmark that measures sentiment around the social, political, economic and cultural changes happening in mountain towns. And it delivers a tool for policymakers to craft regulations and measure progress as communities infuse resident concerns into economies that have traditionally revolved around tourist dollars. 

“We are trying to find that balance between diverse interest groups in the community and recognizing the voice of the community within the tourism economy,” said Insights Collective member Chris Cares, a founding partner and managing director of RRC Associates, which has been measuring and researching resort communities for more than 40 years. 

Not surprisingly, the survey showed mountain communities with a population that is older and wealthier than most others. The study showed an increase of new residents and second homeowners in recent years — 27% moved to the area in the last five years and 57% since 2008. 

Most of those recent arrivals came from an urban or suburban area, with Denver ranking as the top former home for most new arrivals in mountain towns. Summit and Grand counties have the highest percentage of new residents, with Summit being the closest to metro Denver of the five surveyed counties and Grand offering the least expensive home prices. 

Some of the newcomers do not necessarily have jobs connected to the local economy, making them appear less likely to support policies that lure visitors, which can have consequences for residents who do rely on visitors. About 40% of respondents were employed by a local business, with 23% saying they were retired, 17% were self-employed and 16% worked for companies outside the region. 

Only 36% of the new migrants own their homes though, which is a sign of the spiking costs of homes since 2019. 

This community assessment report is different from a resident survey in 2021 that showed locals increasingly concerned with the influx of new residents. That 70-page Mountain Migration report — which included 4,700 responses from the same region and also was commissioned by the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments and Colorado Association of Ski Towns — ranked affordable housing and the lack of housing for workers as “severe problems.” The migration report also showed the wealth of newcomers in a region where about half the homes are occupied by full-time residents as another challenge for working locals. 

“The majority of full-time residents making their living in the county do not have the income to compete for housing in the current high-competition environment,” read the 2021 migration report.

Residents who do not own homes “may be less invested in the overall economic health of the community, and those who have arrived in the last five years have fewer emotional, long-term connections to the community,” reads the report. 

The renting newcomer may have strong opinions about the direction of their communities, but they also may be more inclined to move away.

“It may be in the destination’s interest to ensure the affordability of long-term housing ownership to newer, younger residents to embrace change,” reads the 2021 report.

The new community survey asked 29 questions about the quality of life in mountain towns, gauging characteristics that were most important to the community and identifying whether those dynamics were  improving or declining. All types of community members scored cost of living as the most important measurement when determining quality of life, followed by the availability and cost of housing. 

The results showed that longer-term residents tended to put more value on things like a sense of a community and “a small town atmosphere,” which ranked as the second most important source of a high quality of life in all the counties except for Pitkin and Summit counties, where it ranked first. 

Lower income residents tended to count the cost of living and infrastructure — like emergency services, grocery, public transportation and traffic issues — as key components of a higher quality of life. 

The survey showed that more than one-third of mountain town residents see their quality of life, while high, is in decline. Fewer residents said it was improving. Still, a slight majority of residents said the positives of tourism in mountain towns outweighed the negatives. But most respondents agreed with the statement that “the area is overcrowded because of too many visitors.”

Second homeowners, however, were less likely to see quality of life declining when compared to full-time residents. Second homeowners who rent their properties as short-term rentals have the most positive outlook when it comes to the quality of life in mountain towns. The community assessment differs from previous studies and surveys because it includes second homeowners. The second-home economy in mountain towns is influential but owners are rarely included in local decision-making. 

“We think there’s importance in that second homeowner perspective,” Cares said. “Policymakers would benefit from trying to be clear headed as they try to balance a thriving economy that is dependent on tourism and the quality of life that most second homeowners and full-time residents want and deserve.”

A vast majority of respondents said it was appropriate to divert tourism marketing funds to other community needs. (State legislation in 2022 allowed communities to ask voters to redirect tourism dollars collected from lodging taxes toward housing and recreational infrastructure.) The survey showed almost a third of elected officials support directing 75% to 100% of tourism funding toward other needs. Owners of short-term rentals were the least inclined to reduce marketing funding.

The study was built not just to identify emerging changes in mountain communities coming out of the pandemic but also to build a tool for policymakers to help them measure progress toward goals that better merge resident concerns into tourist-centric communities. The Insights Collective calls it “The Destination Continuum.”

The Destination Continuum is a tool to “maintain and find balance” as communities embrace resident concerns, said collective member Tom Foley, who heads DestiMetrics, the research wing of online reservation company Inntopia. 

The tool will help communities carefully plot the transition, even as more towns crack down on short-term rentals and pull back on tourism funding. 

“Economic shifts away from the long-term foundations of the economy can be done but it’s not something that can be accomplished in a year or two. It’s a decades-long project,” Foley said. 

If people who are invested in tourism-based economies leave and are replaced by people who are not necessarily invested in tourism, how does the economy react, Foley asks. The survey also probes how much residents are willing to give up should tourism revenues fade in a transition toward residents. (Routt County residents were the least likely among the five counties to support tourism-centered policies and were more willing “to dip into personal finances if the investment helped lessen tourism visitation to the area,” reads the report.) 

The answer is found in “fine tuning,” Foley said. It is possible to maintain support for tourism infrastructure while keeping residents happy without tipping too far in one direction, Foley said. 

Maneuvering a community toward a resident focus does not necessarily mean the community will be less tourist friendly, said Margaret Bowes, the executive director of the 40-member Colorado Association of Ski Towns, or CAST. 

“Building strong community character is good for the visitor economy as well,” she said. “I think folks want to go to authentic towns that have great amenities so finding the  right balance is not just good for the residents. It’s good for the visitor as well.”

Bowes said it was “refreshing” to see respondents note that the positives of tourism outweigh the negatives and recognize that many resident-friendly amenities — like affordable housing, recreation centers and trails — are supported by revenue from visitors. 

I think folks want to go to authentic towns that have great amenities so finding the  right balance is not just good for the residents. It’s good for the visitor as well.

— Margaret Bowes, executive director of the Colorado Association of Ski Towns

Since 1979, CAST has provided regional perspectives to ski town issues, offering local leaders insights into how other end-of-the-road mountain communities are grappling with similar challenges around tourism, new residents, skyrocketing home prices and workforce housing. 

“One of the very important roles the CAST organization plays is bringing these communities together to learn that their problems are not that unique and learning about innovations in one community can become a template for  another,” Bowes said. “That’s what I like about this survey. Asking these same questions across many resort counties will provide a great baseline of data so when we do this again  in a few years, communities  can measure the impact of innovative new policies.”

Jon Stavney, the longtime head of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, sees the community assessment as yet another filter to guide local government decisions. For many decades, local leaders have used fiscal responsibility and public perspective as parameters for decision making. In recent years, elected officials have incorporated sustainability around a warming climate into their decision-making. The new study adds yet another framework for local policymakers, he said. 

“This is a gold mine of data to help parse which residents are saying what,” Stavney said. 

Stavney sees local leaders returning to this study as a baseline. And not just for tourism-centric resort towns transitioning toward a more resident focus. Traditional resident-centric communities can use this study to shepherd efforts to be more tourist-friendly as economies mature, he said.

“I think there are a lot of communities that will look at adapting to be more than just residential based,” he said. “I think this continuum will help folks look at their communities a little differently and adjust. As we see more resort communities sort of plateauing, a lot of communities that are not pure resort economies are exploring a larger role in the tourism business.”