The Pikes Peak region’s tourism season was a bit of a mixed bag but much of its contents sparkled with flecks of gold.

Colorado Springs sales tax collections, hotel occupancy rates and airport traffic numbers painted a picture of a steady tourism season comparable with the previous year. But a deeper read into the data shows a nuanced picture of the highs and lows of this year’s peak tourism season.

“It was kind of a weird year,” said PK McPherson, executive director of Pikes Peak Region Attractions, an association of local sites marketing the area’s tourism.

“May and June were really hard on my outdoor guys, because we got so much rain.”

The slow start to summer in those two months coincided with a drop in revenue from the Colorado Springs Lodger’s and Auto Rental Tax or LART.

May LART collections were down 23.56% from the same month last year and June collections were down 2.11% from 2022.

The city’s sales tax collections year-to-date are close to 2022, but after factoring in inflation, economic activity lagged, according to a presentation Bill Craighead, director of UCCS Economic Forum, gave this month about the state of the economy.

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“If the dollar amount is about the same, that means that the amount of underlying economic activity is actually down by a little bit.”

For some of the region’s tourism players, rainy weather pushed visitors indoors, McPherson said, resulting in a record season for attractions including the Ghost Town Museum and Space Foundation Discovery Center.

The height of summer or July Fourth weekend marked a shift as the weather heated up, McPherson said, but without getting too hot.

“July was epically perfect weather here. … It stayed at a decent temperature … plenty of blue skies and sunshine,” McPherson said.

In July, LART collections increased 11.14% from the year prior, airport traffic increased 13.4% and hotel occupancy showed signs of economic growth despite rates that mirrored 2022.

In June, hotel occupancy rates increased less than 1% from the year before, but Craighead pointed out that the number of available rooms in Colorado Springs increased more than 7% — meaning more people were staying in hotels.

Cripple Creek saw an influx of 11,000 visitors in early August during the first weekend that travelers could see Rita the Planter troll, a massive wooden sculpture outside Victor, a neighboring town of Cripple Creek, McPherson said.

That’s roughly double the average number of weekend visitors, she added.

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Luckily, with so much traffic, McPherson said labor shortages that plagued many businesses for the past several years seemed to improve in 2023.

“Employment has been an issue. … We were talking about it very seriously back in 2019,” McPherson said.

“And it seems like this year was the best. … It’s still a concern, but it’s better than it has been in the four years.”

She’s also optimistic about the future. With Pikes Peak Region Attractions’ website and YouTube channel reaching new heights, she is hopeful that it is a sign of steady year-round tourism, which would lessen the blow to business in the winter months and make the area less congested for residents during the peak season.

“Our website was up about 40% for the whole year. We just have been hopping here,” McPherson said.

“And usually, we’re kind of an early indicator, because people often use us as a planning tool for future visits, so I think that those numbers bode well.”