This story by Aaron Calvin was first published in the Stowe Reporter on Nov. 9.
If you’ve found yourself thinking each fall foliage season has meant more leaf peepers in Stowe than the year before, rest assured it’s not just you.
Data collected and analyzed by the Stowe Area Association shows that, with the pandemic-lockdown year of 2020 notwithstanding, leaf peepers have increasingly filled the town’s hotels over the past half-decade or so.
In fact, 2023 saw a record-high occupancy rate of Stowe hotels, according to the association.
The average occupancy rate in Stowe hotels in 2018 during the three-week-long peak foliage season — it shifts slightly each year but generally starts in late September — was 76 percent.
In 2019, the occupancy rate jumped to 82 percent, where it returned to in 2021 following the COVID-19 hiatus. The occupancy rate dipped slightly to 80 percent in 2022 before rocketing back up to 85 percent in the just-finished 2023 season, a 9 percent increase from six years ago.
At the end of August, the association believed that the hotel occupancy rate for the fall foliage season was likely to register 10 percent lower than 2022, but a flurry of last-minute bookings — mostly in September and even more in October — pushed occupancy rates far past initial expectations to a record high.
Sheri Baraw Smith, who became general manager of The Green Mountain Inn in August but has long been involved in the Stowe hotel scene at the formerly Baraw family-run Stoweflake Resort, saw the record occupancy rates up close in her first season on Main Street.
“I feel like the season is longer than it used to be, and that’s a lot of what’s really making a difference for businesses in town,” Smith said. “It started a little earlier, it definitely went a little later, as compared to years ago, when it was much, much more compact.”
Smith partially credited Stowe’s growing visibility over the years as a desirable Vermont destination that offers value for vacationers, not just at the time of peak foliage but before and after and said a mix of tour-bus-shuttled tourist groups and smaller groups benefited hotels.
The Stowe Area Association was eager to take credit for the town’s seemingly expanding foliage tourism.
“The high fall foliage occupancy reflects the importance of SAA’s role in attracting tourism revenue,” McKee Macdonald, president of the association’s board of trustees and co-owner of Coldwell Banker Carlson Real Estate, said.
Over 8,600 guests came into the Stowe visitor information center the association manages on Main Street during fall foliage, including visitors from all 50 states and every major continent except Antarctica, according to the association.
Rentals lower
While hotels saw record occupancy during the foliage season, short-term rentals hovered at just 67 percent occupancy in both 2023 and 2022.
While short-term rentals often see higher occupancy throughout the year, according to the association, hotels consistently dominate the market each fall. This is likely due to the smaller group size of leaf peepers as opposed to summer vacationers, skiers and snowboarders.
“Condos and vacation houses, which can work great for large families or groups, but may not be in as high of demand for smaller groups like couples,” an association representative wrote in a press release. “We also see a high number of tour buses in Stowe, which almost exclusively stay at traditional lodging properties.”
