Visit Colorado Springs presents 2025–28 roadmap to boost off‑season visitation and length of stay

Doug Price, president and CEO of Visit Colorado Springs (VisitCOS), presented the organization's 2025–28 strategic roadmap to the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners on Sept. 2, outlining initiatives to increase year‑round visitation and raise the average length of stay in the Pikes Peak region.

Price summarized three primary imperatives in the plan: secure additional promotional funding to build year‑round visitation, grow overnight visitation in off‑peak seasons, and increase the average length of stay to support local businesses. He described a set of seven initiative areas VisitCOS will lead, including stewardship of natural assets, packaging with hotels and attractions, increasing air service and signature events, and coordinated regional planning with partner jurisdictions.

Price cited results from a resident sentiment survey and an economic profile: "25,500,000 visitors brought $33,100,000,000 in economic impact to the region," and noted that only about 12,000,000 of those visitors stayed overnight while roughly 13,000,000 were day trippers. He said overnight visitors spend about $189 per person versus approximately $69 per day for day visitors, and he highlighted a recent increase in length of stay from 2.2 to 2.7 nights and a 2.7% visitation rise in 2024.

Price also said VisitCOS plans to launch its first winter leisure campaign for 2025–26 and to expand neighborhood and trails promotion aimed at residents and visitors. He told commissioners he had heard an informal opening date for the new Hosmer Visitor Center at the Air Force Academy "by May 15," which would be shortly before graduation, and presented VisitCOS's neighborhood profiling work funded by a Colorado Tourism Office grant.

Commissioners asked about resident concerns that make some oppose tourism, and Price said traffic, trail congestion and impacts on open spaces were the most cited negatives in the survey. He described VisitCOS efforts to spread visitation geographically and seasonally, and to support local safety and cleanliness initiatives such as a downtown clean-and‑safe ambassador program.

The presentation included references to the 2018 destination master plan and a 2024 Longwood visitor-profile study that VisitCOS is using to measure progress against goals for LARP revenues, local sales tax growth and overnight visitor increases.