Colorado tourism industry leaders this week unveiled a sprawling plan to manage record-breaking visitation in the state while safeguarding natural landscapes and residents’ quality of life. 

The 158-page Destination Stewardship Strategic Plan is intended to be a 10-year framework for state, regional and local officials — as well as community groups, tribes and landowners — to partner on tourism management and recreation sustainability initiatives. 

“Our plan is focused on balancing our incredible quality of life and our world-class outdoors and communities, with the experience of visitors who come to our great state,” stated Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, in a Sept. 18 news release announcing the plan. “This will ensure that we remain a leader in tourism and outdoor recreation for decades to come.”

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The planning effort has been in the works for over a year and comes on the heels of a new report from the state tourism office showing there were 93.3 million visitors to Colorado in 2023 — an all time high. 

“This plan is a roadmap for the future of Colorado tourism, shaped by the collective vision of our industry and communities to position tourism as a force for good,” said Colorado Tourism Office Executive Director Tim Wolfe, in a statement. 

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Visitor use, particularly in the state’s public lands, shifted dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic as droves of travelers sought refuge in the outdoors. In 2020, more people than ever hiked Colorado 14ers, for example. In some cases, it sparked new regulations, such as paid parking and shuttle services at Quandary Peak, the most popular 14er in the state. 

“An increase of tourists, while beneficial for the economy, can exert pressure on the environment, leading to habitat degradation, pollution, and resource depletion,” the Stewardship Strategic Plan states. “Additionally, the influx of visitors in some areas is intensifying traffic congestion and affecting the overall quality of life for residents.”

The plan presents 118 strategies divided into more than a dozen sections to deal with the explosive growth. Examples of strategies include: 

• Targeting state grants to local marketing efforts around stewardship and sustainability 
• Establishing partnerships with tribal leaders as well as local and regional recreation/outdoor coalitions
• Increasing local involvement in tourism planning with community-led advisory boards
• Identifying the need for timed-entry and permit systems and seasonal closures 
• Facilitating tourism industry relations with land managers to improve assessment data collection at recreation hotspots and provide guided wildlife-viewing experiences
• Improving and expanding alternate modes of travel such as by upgrading pedestrian and bike pathways, promoting carpooling and raising ridership on CDOT’s Bustang, Snowstang and Pegasus services 

The document is also accompanied by eight individual plans for Colorado’s different regions, as defined by the tourism office. Those cover all four corners of the state and include the eastern plains, Front Range metro areas, mountain resorts and Western Slope — with the intention for each plan to be more tailored to those communities’ needs. 

Recreation sustainability continues to be a top-of-mind concern for resort communities that have seen a surge in visitation since 2020. 

A survey commissioned by the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments and the Colorado Association of Ski Towns earlier this year showed there was a sense of declining quality of life among respondents. The survey highlighted differing perspectives held by year-round residents and those who own short-term rentals and/or vacation homes — with the former advocating for more focus on locals and less on tourism. 

Alex Derr, founder of the online recreation blog The Next Summit, championed both the statewide and regional plans for tourism management, saying that different communities need different strategies. Derr has a background in recreation use and studied the private land-owner issues that impacted access of the popular Decalibron Loop as part of his master’s thesis project at the University of Colorado in Denver. 

A regional tourism approach is “about listening to local communities, working with them and not against them,” said Derr, who is also a member of the Care for Colorado Coalition which participated in several planning sessions for the statewide initiative. 

“If a community overwhelmingly opposes expansions and new trails but the state insists on it anyways, we have to wonder what kind of a tourism experience that would be anyway?” Derr continued. “There are also parts of the state that don’t have overcrowding problems — the eastern plains would love to have some more tourism dollars coming their way.”

Such an approach is already being hailed by state agencies through programs like the Outdoor Regional Partnerships Initiative, which provides state funding to build and foster coalitions focused on conservation. 

Derr said he is especially happy to see the new state plan emphasize education around sustainable tourism practices, such as through scaling the tourism office’s Do Colorado Right campaign. 

“At least a dozen of those strategies involve the Do Colorado Right campaign,” Derr said. “I’ve always personally thought it was a program that had huge potential but wasn’t having the reach or penetration that it could.”

The plan also calls for probing the use of timed-entry and permit systems by studying areas where those have already been adopted, such as Rocky Mountain National Park, Maroon Bells and Hanging Lake. 

While Derr said he is not opposed to those approaches, he acknowledged it does present barriers to people trying to access the outdoors. Especially when time and money is involved, it can lead to inequities for who gets to recreate. 

“That’s like the surgical intervention,” Derr said, adding that such tactics can “degrade trust between the outdoor communities who want access and the land managers who are in a really tough position.”

Derr hopes a greater education push — paired with more targeted infrastructure investments where needed — can be a proactive measure that avoids closures of or limited entries to recreational hotspots. If anything, Derr believes Colorado could be more accessible. 

“I continually see that today one of the biggest demands of the recreation community is more infrastructure,” Derr said. “I don’t think we need every wilderness area to have a road running through it, but I do think Colorado could improve the accessibility of that area with targeted and strategic improvements.”

Perhaps the state plan’s biggest strength is its breadth and diversity of input, Derr said. The initiative brought together more than 1,000 stakeholder groups, including wildlife officials, public land managers and local community leaders. 

“To be bringing everyone into the room like this, it’s not something that happens a lot in the outdoor sector,” Derr said. “I feel like it really does represent a shift from the more siloed approach to this type of work.”

With a first-of-its-kind plan now in hand for the state, Derr said the greatest challenge will be “avoiding it ending up on a shelf.”

“I hope it thrives and grows and really gets taken seriously,” he said. 
The full Destination Stewardship Strategic Plan can be viewed at CTOStewardship.com.