The Pikes Peak region tourism season that almost wasn’t is ending with better-than-expected visitor numbers, though still down considerably from last year, industry officials say.

By virtually all measures, Colorado Springs tourism has recovered to a greater extent than the rest of the state and nation. But it remains a long way from reaching the record levels of last year.

A few examples — hotel occupancy jumped from a low of 18.1% in April to 66% in July but remains well behind the 88% reached in July 2019. The local leisure and hospitality sector, tourism and restaurants, regained nearly 85% of the jobs lost in March and April by July but still remains 8,400 workers below its August 2019 peak. Both measures rank among the nation’s best amid the pandemic.

“Overall this summer tourism season was better than we expected during this recovery,” Doug Price, CEO of Visit Colorado Springs, said in an email. “We’re glad to see our hotel occupancy numbers this summer have been the highest in our nation. While it shows our destination is top of mind, there’s still a long recovery journey ahead of us. Our overall hotel occupancy numbers for the summer of 2020 compared to last summer are still down significantly. Recovery isn’t a quick process, and it’s going to take three to five years before we are back to our pre-pandemic trajectory.”

Price said the tourism promotion group’s best measures of visitor activity — visits to its website and trip planning numbers — both grew every month since Gov. Jared Polis allowed his stay-at-home order to expire in late April. By August, both measures exceeded numbers from 2019, likely as a result of schools starting later and mostly online. Much of the growth resulted from local and state marketing campaigns targeting Colorado residents that were later expanded to include nearby states.

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P.K. Knickerbocker, executive director of the Pikes Peak Country Attractions Association, a trade group for the region’s tourism venues, said she was “pleasantly surprised how busy we were. Everyone was down, but better than we expected them to be.”

She said visitor numbers varied between declines of 15%-20% at some attractions and 60%-70% at a few, with an average drop of between 25%-30%.

“Everyone is reporting that those that did come were spending more on a per-person basis,” Knickerbocker said. “We had expected most of the visitors to come from Colorado, but we had a surprising number of people from states as far away as Florida or Pennsylvania. People felt more safe coming here than going to other destinations — they were looking for wide open spaces. We are hoping to continue to have (strong) traffic into fall to make up for being closed in the spring.”

Statewide, tourism spending generally improved each week through mid-August, but was still down more than 30% from last year, according to data from Oxford Economics. Tourism spending in Colorado during the pandemic — which the company measures from March 8 to Aug. 22 — fell $6.5 billion, or 61.3% from the same period a year ago to $4.13 billion. Colorado is generally faring better than the rest of the nation, especially tourism hot spots like Hawaii, New York and Washington, D.C., where spending is down 70%-80%.

Cathy Ritter, director of the Colorado Tourism Office, said the state’s tourism industry is thriving in mountain resort destinations but struggling in the Denver area and along the Front Range, where convention and meeting cancellations have taken a major toll on the industry and sent hotel occupancy plunging. She called Colorado Springs “one of the bright spots” and said the tourism industry is “on a trajectory of recovery, but one that is not shared equally across the state.”

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Many tourism business owners reported strong visitor numbers in July and August and hope that those numbers remain strong this month as many schools are starting with online classes only. But they remain worried that visitor numbers will dwindle in the fall as students eventually return to in-person classes and the traditional source of fall visitors — corporate and large group meetings — will be missing due to the pandemic.

The largest convention in Colorado Springs, the Space Symposium, which draws more than 13,000 participants to The Broadmoor for four days, is off for this year, and virtually every other convention or large meeting also has been canceled or postponed. The symposium, which generates $300 million annually in local economic activity, was originally set for March, then delayed until October, and is now set for August of next year.

The region’s tourism industry benefited from visitors seeking outdoor recreation options. Most outdoor attractions, including those twith both indoor and outdoor features, thrived during July and August. Capacity limits hobbled many indoor attractions, and even some outdoor locations such as the North Pole amusement park. Many attraction owners said they struggled to find enough workers this season, blaming enhanced unemployment benefits that paid laid-off workers an extra $600 a week though late July.

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“We are in the sweet spot for what people are seeking this year. We have seen impressive demand,” said Andy Neinas, owner of Echo Canyon River Expeditions, a rafting operator in Cañon City. “We had fewer people (because of capacity restrictions) but they spent more. We were closed in May but were busier in August than we have been in the past, so overall we were down a little bit and I am so happy to be down just a little bit.”

The Royal Gorge Bridge & Park also saw strong visitor numbers since most of the attraction near Cañon City is outdoors, said Peggy Gair, the attraction’s public relations and human resource manager.

“Right after July 4, the crowds started showing up with visitation up or equal with last year. We had a good August, a little bit up from last year on some days, but visitation typically drops like a rock in the second week of August” as school resumes, Gair said. “People want to get out and they feel safe outdoors. But we are still down between 27%-30% for the year because we can’t make up for the time we were closed.”

Cave of the Winds owner Grant Carey agreed that visitor numbers were strong for July and August — the attraction was sold out most every day — but capacity limits to slow the spread of the pandemic meant only half as many tickets were available. As result, revenue was down by half from a year ago and the number of employees also was half of the previous year’s total. Cave of the Winds was closed for four months as a result of state and local restrictions related to the pandemic.

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“We were just thankful to be open again,” Carey said. “We stopped complaining about how things used to me and figured out how to make the best of the situation, though we lived in fear that somebody would pull the plug on us and close us down again. With the season ending, we have a long, dark winter ahead of us and I look forward to next spring. At this point, I’m not planning anything.”

Tim Haas, CEO of TAT Enterprises, which owns the Garden of the Gods Trading Post and seven other shops in Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs catering to tourists, said sales built each month from May, when the shops were allowed to reopen after the stay-at-home order, through August.

While he called the improvement “encouraging,” sales for the year likely will be down 25%-30% and will be the worst in the company’s 41-year history. Haas remains concerned that customer numbers might plunge during the fall.

The Miramount Castle museum in Manitou Springs reported this summer was “one of the hardest” due to capacity restrictions and a peak season that lasted less than two months, said Peggy Yager, the museum’s treasurer. The museum was hurt by cancellation of nearly all special events in Manitou Springs that typically attract crowds and supply visitors, making this year “the tourist season that barely was,” she said.

North Pole owner Tom Haggard said the amusement park operated for just 11 days before it was shut down and has only been able to operate four of its 28 rides since it was able to resume limited operations Aug. 1. That forced Haggard to cut ticket prices with attendance off by about 70% and revenue down about 90% — lowest in the park’s 64-year history. He is still trying to get approval to open more rides, and he hopes for better attendance during the holiday season.

No numbers are yet available for the city’s newest attraction, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum, though “we continue to receive incredibly positive feedback about the entire museum experience from the many guests who have visited us and we continue to receive excellent response to our safety features,” said Peter Maiurro, the museum’s chief communications and business affairs officer.