News that Grand County and the City of Moab came up short on sales and transient room tax collections through April by 6% and 7%, respectively, did not exactly surprise me.
Tourist traffic is noticeably lighter. It’s easier to get seated at a restaurant and parking spaces are relatively simple to find, even on the weekend.
I haven’t been on too many hikes lately, much to my chagrin, so I can’t speak to what life is like on the trails, but I suspect they are less crowded and therefore more enjoyable.
So, by measures that are both hard facts and anecdotal, we can confidently say tourism is down.
What’s interesting is the wildly different reactions from our two local governments. Grand County kind of hit the panic button and gutted the Grand County Active Transportation and Trails budget by $200,000, reasoning its pot of money is one of the county’s largest. The fact it receives much of its funding from grants wasn’t even considered for some reason.
Chair Bill Winfield issued an ominous warning that future cuts are possible and encouraged department heads to look at what fat can be trimmed from their budgets.
The Moab City Council on the other hand is taking a wait and see approach. City Manager Michael Black is reasonably confident that things will rebound this year.
There is a reason for the county to be nervous and the city to be calm. The county is more than halfway through its fiscal year, which mirrors the calendar year, but the city’s just began July 1. And, the city’s budget is leaner and more conservative than the county’s.
And while we argue ad nauseum over the merits of timed-entry at Arches National Park, as if that one thing is causing all our tourism ills, timed-entry has become a scapegoat. It’s not even in effect at the moment and won’t be used again until sometime in August.
In Las Vegas, tourism is down similarly to what we’re seeing here. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said visitation declined by 6.5% in May compared to May 2024 and the statewide gaming win fell 2.2% year-over-year, dropping from $1.32 billion in May 2024 to $1.29 billion last May, according to KSNV, Las Vegas’ NBC affiliate.
As Las Vegas goes, so goes the West. Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming that tourism is not just down, but way down, to the tune of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Colorado resort towns are experiencing slowdowns and Moab could arguably be lumped into this Colorado’s demographic.
There is no single reason for this, but all the reasons that do exist are inter-related.
At the risk of — gasp! — taking a political stance that will undoubtedly anger some of you, the drop in tourism could largely be attributed to new federal policies from the Trump administration.
International tourism is significantly down across the entire country. The on again, off again tariff threats have absolutely impacted international travel, especially from Canada, the country that sends more tourists to Utah than any other and one that was subjected to threats and insults from President Trump.
There are studies that show international travelers are not internationally traveling because of a U.S. government they perceive as openly hostile. You can’t insult the world and expect the world to keep coming.
Those international travelers who don’t care about tariffs aren’t coming because they’re afraid they might get kidnapped by masked ICE agents and sent to Gitmo or God knows where.
Domestic travel is also down thanks to economic uncertainty and travel patterns have shifted. More and more, people aren’t willing to spend hundreds of dollars for a single night’s stay in a hotel, or for $5 bottles of water.
Surely, the newly enacted $250 “visa integrity fee” that international travelers, including businesspeople and vacationers, must pay will have some staying home.
And even if they still want to visit the U.S., the airline industry is in such disarray that there’s a good chance scheduled flights will be delayed or canceled altogether and who wants to get stuck at the airport?
None of these causes have a dang thing to do with timed entry at Arches, or that Moab has a reputation as a town that likes quiet streets and a desire for visitors to respect the place and people they’re visiting.
Because it’s not just government coffers going hungry. Businesses are clearly struggling. The people who own overnight rentals still have to pay the mortgage on those places and the housekeepers and other tourism workers aren’t making any money and if they’re not making any money they aren’t spending any either — which puts a further strain on the Moab economy.
We know things will stay slow at least through August, but what happens in September and October when cooler temperatures typically lead to more visitors? If they still don’t come, then the county would be right to panic and the city would have to make hard decisions just as the municipal election heats up.
In the meantime, and in search of any silver lining, there is anecdotal evidence that things might rebound in the fall. I have a dear friend here in Moab who has an overnight rental. She, like many others, has been unable to book a single night’s occupancy for most of June, all of July and her August calendar is emptier than my bank account.
On the good news side, she’s booked almost solid for September and October and well into November. She can’t be alone, and for that we can hold out hope that our struggle is temporary.
