Early-season skiers flooded Colorado in late 2015 to take advantage of the snow left by a strong El Nino. But for the rest of the season, room bookings are lagging.
The Denver Postreports that the Colorado Ski Country trade association said that visits to its 21 member resorts were up 10 percent compared with the same period last season.
Ski Country president Melanie Mills says the spike is fueled by strong snowfall and buzz about the El Nino weather pattern.
But an end-of-November analysis from Denver-based DestiMetrics said bookings for both January and February were down. DestiMetrics analyzes lodging reports from 19 mountain communities in six western states.
DestiMetrics director Ralf Garrison says the research group expected strong bookings for those months, calling the data inconsistent with recent history.