Colorado spends less on tourism than neighboring states. Industry leaders hope budget issues won’t shrink funds further.

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Leaders in Colorado’s tourism industry are appealing to lawmakers to keep dollars flowing to local initiatives as the state prepares to pull back spending across departments and sectors.

Representatives for tourism offices across Colorado met in Denver on Tuesday to hear industry updates and connect with legislators as they advocate for more ways to entice visitors to all four corners of the state.

Tourism remains an economic powerhouse in Colorado, with the state seeing 93.3 million visitors who spent a total of $23.8 billion in 2023, according to a Colorado Tourism Office report released last summer.

Yet the state spends less on tourism initiatives compared to its neighbors and competitors. Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico’s tourism budgets were between $25.5 and $29.4 million in 2022, while Colorado’s was $20.3 million, according to Colorado Tourism Office Director Tim Wolfe.

Now, lawmakers are eyeing major cuts to state spending to dig out of a nearly $1 billion deficit this legislative session. Wolfe said it’s unclear how that may impact the tourism office, which uses state dollars to help with local tourism groups’ needs, such as grants to support sustainable tourism campaigns, materials and programming.

“We’ve been working, for months, to define our budget to the legislators in terms of, ‘How do we measure success?'” Wolf said to an audience of tourism industry professionals inside Denver’s McNichols Civic Center Building. “The bottom line is, we’re just holding our own to try to not lose any ground.”

Wolfe said it’s incumbent on local tourism offices to make the case for why tourism funding should be preserved in the state’s upcoming budget.

“It’s about showing what the value of tourism is,” Wolfe said. “You guys are the megaphones for what’s best for your community on tourism.”

Bruce Dalton, chief executive officer for Visit Aurora and board member for the Colorado Tourism Office, said it is “very evident that we are underfunded (as a state) and we have to come up with different ways of alternative funding to create more opportunity for us to sell and be successful in promoting our destination.”

“Because every year, it’s going to be a tighter budget and every year there’s concerns about losing that revenue coming to the tourism office,” Dalton said.

President Donald Trump’s attempted freeze on a wide swath of federal funding last week also brings uncertainty for state and local budgets that help feed tourism-related initiatives, Dalton said.

“In the city of Aurora, we’re already considering a $6 million to $10 million deficit in 2026 because of some of those issues,” Dalton said. “So if we’re not looking at it right now and paying attention to how to correct some of what is being done through the state to support tourism, then we’re going to lose it.”

Breckenridge Tourism Office President and CEO Lucy Kay said how the Trump administration impacts international travel is also a big unknown.

The tourism office, like others in mountain resort communities, has been pushing for more overseas visitors who stay longer, spend more money and don’t contribute as much to congestion as day travelers.

If Breckenridge is able to improve occupancy rates for the town’s lodging properties, it will help keep local dollars available for tourism funding, Kay said.

“We don’t rely on the (Colorado Tourism Office) the way that some of the smaller destinations do,” Kay said, adding that the Breckenridge office is primarily funded through local lodging tax revenue.

Beyond investing in tourism strategies, lodging taxes also go toward a host of community needs like child care programs and affordable housing, especially in high-cost mountain towns. It’s part of why industry leaders say a focus on tourism is so important.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, lodging occupancy has flattened in the High Country, due in part to a decline in international travelers that has resulted in more day traffic.

Airbnb and Vrbo are projecting occupancy will continue to trend down in Colorado in 2025, according to Wolfe.

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