Tourism numbers.

Another article about how great the tourism was during the holidays, this time from KTVZ.

Since it used almost the exact same wording as the Bulletin article, I suspect that they used the same original source -- and I suspect that source was a 'press release' and/or press releaser who feels his or her job is to make everyone feel positive about the holiday results.  I'm pretty sure it's not based on hard news or data.

It's always a danger to conflate one's own results with everyone else -- either positive or negative.  But I'm still skeptical about this giant surge in tourism.  I still don't see how the kids being in school the week before Christmas adds up to "extra" days.  I still don't see how the weather on the passes was mild enough for travel during most of that period. (In fact, in both cases, I think the opposite happened.)

The Inn of the Seventh Mountain says it had a huge increase, but I have to wonder if there weren't some other dynamic going on there.  I haven't seen much evidence beside that.  Room revenues were up in November, which I believe, because my sales were up in November.

But December?  I'd be absolutely astounded if most businesses saw the 4 to 15% increases the article mentions.  Some will, of course.  Some won't, of course.

But as an overall trend, I kind of doubt it.


I don't know. Maybe I'm all wet.  But I have my doubts about these kinds of fluff pieces.  They aren't based on anything but wishful thinking and selective evidence and inadequate data and self-serving anecdotal experience.

I admit I don't have anything better to offer -- just my doubts.


Here's what I think happened; with no better evidence than the other side.

I think the first half of December was horrid.  The passes were a real mess for much of that time.  My own store's sales took a 50% drop in sales in the four days after the Newtown shootings.  There was all the talk of the fiscal cliff.

The week before Christmas was good -- but would have been even better if most of the kids were out of school, instead of getting out on Friday, just three shopping days left before Christmas.

A common sense question:  If you were a business, and you had a choice of having kids and families out of school for the week before Christmas or the week after New Years, which would you choose?

Yeah.

So we have a pretty good after Christmas half of the week, and it extended into the following week (not pre-Christmas size, but better than average).  However, these sales pretty much died off in the last part of the week.

Over all, we were down considerably in the first 17 days of the month, and held our own in the last 14 days, then had a pretty large drop-off the week after New Years despite the kids being out of school.

Like I said, that could just be us.