EDITORIAL: Tourism, at the Edge of the World, Part One

I would compare the tourism industry to a bottle of whiskey. 

A little bit can make you feel relaxed and happy.

Too much, and you wake up to find yourself lying in the gutter.

Right now, I think Pagosa Springs is lying in the gutter, but hasn’t woke up yet.

Or has it?

When I arrived at the well-publicized ‘Halloween Hootenanny’, at 5pm Saturday afternoon, the scene at Yamaguchi Park seemed relatively deserted.  Yes, there were eight food vendors, and a band going through a sound check on the Town’s portable stage.  But not many people.  Maybe 100?

Which was completely understandable, considering that it had been raining most of the day.  The air was somewhat chilly; people were wearing coats and jackets, and wool caps.  Not many were dressed in Halloween costumes.

The event had been planned and hosted by the tax-funded Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board — AKA ‘VisitPagosaSprings.com’ — with additional sponsorships from government and business… as an attempt to liven up the autumn “shoulder season”.

But I had to wonder… The event is sponsored by the Tourism Board?  Were any of the people in the meager crowd actually tourists?

I returned later that evening, with some of my family and friends, to view the promised fireworks display, and found that the crowd had grown substantially.  Maybe 250 people?

The fireworks show was loud and colorful, but it had — in my opinion — a couple of negative aspects.  For one thing, it was entirely too long.  15 minutes of essentially the same explosions, repeated over and over?  I would have been quite satisfied with five minutes.  And it seemed like most of the people dancing on the lawn were playing more attention to the live music than the fireworks.

And the other thing.  How much was spent on this over-long, repetitive display?  According to the Tourism Board minutes, the show cost the taxpayers $25,000.

$1,700 per minute.

The out-of-town band brought in to perform were decent musicians and did a fine job, especially considering challenge of playing instruments with cold hands.  But to be honest, I’ve seen local bands who were just as entertaining.

All in all, a questionable expenditure of taxpayer dollars, made even more so by relatively miserable October weather.  And by lack of community support?  Here’s Tourism Board executive director Jennie Green, speaking to the Board of County Commissioners on October 24:

“Working with the business community is a two-way street.  We can do as much as we can, but if the businesses aren’t willing to engage with the mechanisms we have in place… We have a big event this Saturday and… we’ve pulled together a lot of the community to organize a full day of Halloween festivities, and I can’t say we have a lot of support from the lodgers.

“They’ve long said they wanted shoulder season events…”

“It’s a lot of extra work, on the staff, on the community.  And, so, I’ll be honest, it’s frustrating that my team… basically our entire focus is trying to promote tourism… and it doesn’t come down to one individual or a team of staff.  It comes down to the community, and whether or not this is what the community wants.”

At last week’s Pagosa Springs Town Council budget work session — with only Pagosa Springs SUN reporter Derek Kutzer and myself in the audience — I listened to Council member Gary Williams extol the virtues of tourism. Mr. Williams is the Council representative on the Pagosa Springs Area Tourism Board.

“I think we all realize that tourism is the industry in Pagosa, and we need to level it up in the shoulder seasons, bring it up in the shoulder seasons, to help our lodgers.

“And we need to expend the money efficiently and effectively.  And we recognize, we need to find ways to determine if we’re doing that…”

Mr. Williams may have been referring to the current controversies around the government subsidies and expenditures benefiting the tourism industry.  For the past decade, the Town has been lumping its Lodging Tax revenues together with the revenues from Archuleta County Lodging Tax, but recently, the Board of County Commissioners requested negotiation of a new agreement, clarifying how those joint revenues will be spent.

Additionally, a group of tourist industry businesses submitted a letter to the Town and County, suggests that the authority of the tourism board could be enlarged from that of an ‘advisory board’ — presumably, becoming responsible for its own budget decisions? — or that the tourism department could be placed under the control of the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation.

Here’s Council member Maddie Bergon, who previously served on the Tourism Board:

“I think we all want the same thing… we can all work a little bit better, together, moving forward as the Town and County.  And then, based on, kind of, the letter that you guys had forwarded to us, it sounds like the lodgers are ready to become a little bit more involved. That’s awesome.  Hopefully, they can form an association and have a stronger voice at the table.  And I hope they can help us, by providing anything we need of them, as well.  So they can get everything they’re asking for, and more…”

Reading between the lines, it would appear that certain business owners are not happy with the current operations of the Tourism Board.

This controversy comes at a time when Lodgers Tax revenues have been declining, following a (somewhat obscene?) increase during the height of the COVID crisis.  At the October 26 work session, Ms. Green predicted that the downward trend will continue.

If only… tourism industry wages had increased by similar percentages…  But that might be expecting too much of our tourism businesses.

At any rate, it appears we have certain business owners and community leaders who would like to blame the revenue decline on Ms. Green and her staff, who are officially ‘Town employees’.

The ‘Halloween Hootenanny’ on Saturday was purportedly planned as one of the “shoulder season” efforts mentioned by Council member Williams, aimed at boosting tourism during those times of year when we don’t see many tourists… those times of year, when businesses depend on local residents…

…Local residents who may be struggling to pay the rent, due to low tourism industry wages and high housing costs caused partly by homes being converted into vacation rentals.

Typically, Pagosa’s “shoulder seasons” are from mid-September until Christmas Break, from New Years through Spring Break, and from Spring Break through the middle of June.

Those are the times of year when Pagosa seems most like the town I moved here to enjoy…

…after visiting first as a tourist, of course.  During a ‘shoulder season’ as I recall.

Read Part Two…