DILLON, Colo. — A trip to the high country may come with increased costs this winter, but industry stakeholders anticipate consumer demand will still exceed totals seen in years past.
"It's true that prices have gone up slightly in our categories, actually like they have in most consumer goods and most categories of consumer products, to an extent, driven by inflation," said Matt Gold, CEO of Christy Sports.
Christy Sports is a retailer of ski and snowboard equipment. Gold explained that their stores across the state have tried to balance consumer interests with rising costs.
"We really do have a very broad range of offerings from the entry level all the way up to the most high-end, the most premium levels for all types of customers," he said.
Restaurants in the high country are balancing interests, too.
"We've had to scale back our menu quite a bit, which is partly from the pandemic and then partly from hiring and stuff like that. We've found items we can't even get anymore," said Jonny Greco, owner of Greco's Pastaria in Frisco.
Select menu ingredients that are available now cost Greco more, which will mean a menu markup for the future.
"That's in the works right now. We tried our hardest to not pass that on to our customers until we had to," Greco said. "We plan on doing a new menu with increased prices, especially things like some of our add-on items: salmon, filet or adding shrimp."
Despite inflation, Greco and Gold both believe customer demand will exceed previous tourism totals.
"That cabin fever we saw this summer is going to continue this winter," Greco said.
"I think local customers plus drive-up customers and destination travel will be back this year," Gold said.
