Park City visitors kept coming in June but pulled back in July, according to new DestiMetrics lodging data cited by the Park City Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau on Wednesday, July 29. Chamber CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff characterized the results as part of a national normalization trend after several unusually strong post-pandemic years.

June occupancy rose 3% year-over-year while average daily room rates dipped 4%, according to the Chamber. July is pacing about 6% below last year's occupancy, but average room rates climbed more than 3%.

Wesselhoff said the July numbers reflect lodging operators holding their prices rather than chasing guests with discounts.

"This tells us our lodging partners are wisely maintaining pricing discipline rather than discounting rooms to chase volume," Wesselhoff wrote in a Park Record column published Wednesday, July 29. "That is an important sign of confidence in the market."

Over the past six months, occupancy fell 11% while average daily rates declined just 2%, reinforcing that pattern.

The forward-looking data offers a brighter signal. DestiMetrics projects occupancy will rise 2% over the next six months while room rates dip only 1%. Wesselhoff called it the first positive occupancy projection the Chamber has reported "in some time."

Tax revenue picture is murkier

The health of visitor spending beyond lodging is harder to pin down. Wesselhoff reported that sales tax revenues, by the Chamber's measure, rose 11% in April and are up 3.5% year-to-date, with parks and recreation tax collections up 3.3%. The specific tax categories and comparison baselines behind those figures were not detailed in her column.

Those numbers appear to conflict with data cited by Park City City Manager Adam Lenhard in a July 8 interview on KPCW. Lenhard said April municipal sales tax revenue was down about 5%, or roughly $112,000, compared to April 2025. Year-to-date collections were about 4% lower, he said, calling it "a continuation of a very weak winter."

Transient room tax was down almost 32% compared to April 2025, according to the city data Lenhard cited.

The discrepancy likely reflects different tax categories or comparison baselines. Neither the Chamber nor the city has publicly clarified the difference.

The normalization isn't unique to Park City. DestiMetrics' March 2026 regional briefing showed Colorado and Utah resort occupancy booking pace was down 19.4% year-over-year in February, though early summer bookings were described as strong.

Meanwhile, Placer.ai data published Thursday, July 16 by Summit County Economic Development Director Jeff Jones shows visitors are spending 20% less time in the county than in 2019. County staff described the area as looking "increasingly like a workday/day-trip destination and less like a place people linger," KPCW reported.

For local businesses that depend on overnight guests, the takeaway is cautious: rooms are filling at lower rates than the pandemic boom, but operators are holding prices and the forward outlook has turned positive for the first time in months.

DestiMetrics collects data from more than 3,000 participating rooms in the Park City area twice monthly.