Flagstaff received less snow this winter, making things tough for its tourism industry

Winter in Phoenix never looks like a snow playground. But that’s why so many of us head north up the Interstate 17 to Flagstaff when the weather turns cold for some skiing, snowshoeing or sledding.

Winter tourism is one of Flagstaff’s most important economic drivers. In fact, in the 2022-23 snow season, an estimated 167,000 people brought $19.7 million to the local economy.

But this season it’s been a tougher sell to get people to visit Flagstaff’s snowy peaks because, like much of the Mountain West, there just hasn’t been much snow.

Flagstaff just saw its highest-temperature March in history. With just 26.6 inches of snow by the end of the month, it tied for the third-driest snowfall month in Flagstaff history. That’s 58 inches behind normal for this time of year, according to the Arizona Daily Sun.

The Show spoke more about the impact of that unwintry weather with Trace Ward, executive director of Discover Flagstaff, the city’s official convention and visitor bureau.

Full conversation

WARD: We've had other winters that we've had less snowfall than our average, so it isn't entirely new. But I will tell you that, yes, everybody in the community was waiting with bated breath for the snow. It's very important to us. It's important for both our economy, as well as that snowfall is important for the state.

So, yeah, it's disappointing we didn't get the snow that we wanted, but. But we certainly pivot like we do every year when this occurs.

GILGER: Yeah. So let's talk about that, what this looks like. I mean, you can't control the weather, obviously. And we were experiencing a similar kind of parallel narrative here in the Valley, right? In terms of spring training and all of these big events happening and record high temperatures throughout the spring here.

As you were watching the snowfall totals run short, the temperatures remain high in Flagstaff, did you see impacts on tourism, on visitation? Because so many people go up to ski, to sled, to play in the snow, right?

WARD: Yeah, we did. We were down about 2% as an aggregate for the winter season. Which is not nothing — but perhaps less than what some people might think in this scenario. It has a lot to do with the fact that Flagstaff's a dynamic city. It's not just a ski town.

We have lots of industry and lots of things for visitors to do even if they don't want to — well, even if they can't play in the snow, so to speak. But we do have some of the key drivers for winter, which are Snowbowl as well as the winter park sledding area, which is at Fort Tuthill.

So they make snow. I'm sure most of the listeners know that. So they had not quite a par year. But the fact that they can make snow certainly helps.

GILGER: Yeah, I can imagine. So 2%, not huge, but not nothing, as you're saying there. What did this look like for businesses? I mean this is 2% of a very big pie, right?

WARD: Right. Yeah. Our restaurants are reporting that their patronage could be as high as 60-70%, in some cases, of their business. So when tourism is down, it's a big deal for them. And yeah, the restaurants and some of the shops had a slow year, a tough year for sure.

We just market all of the other things that there are to do here. The Lowell Observatory has a new astronomy discovery center. You know, charming downtown with lots of unique restaurants and shops. And of course Route 66 is having their centennial this year. So we're seeing more of what we call a medium- or a long-haul customer coming in for that.

Less of a drive market. And then there's just Museum of Northern Arizona and of course award-winning breweries. And quite honestly, people just want a really cool mountain town getaway. And so even if they don't have the snow, we get those visitors that just want to be at 7,000 feet.

GILGER: Yeah. So I mean, lots of stories have been coming out of like Colorado and Utah this year about those ski resorts having very rough years. And Flagstaff isn't quite that kind of exclusively ski resort town. But it does sound like this could be more common going forward, whether or not it's our "new normal" to have very high temperature winters, much less snow, as we did this year.

Is this something that Flagstaff and the tourism bureau in particular there are thinking about in terms of a more common scenario, at least, in the future?

Conrad Romero

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Cronkite News

WARD: Yeah, the city adopted a climate action plan not too many years ago, and they're working towards carbon neutrality, which is the goal is 2030. And we participate in that goal. So the city takes climate action very seriously. We do anticipate that this could be approaching the norm as time moves on. And in those cases we're really just, like I said, selling what we have.

I can't create the snow in the city. And so we're going to talk about all the beautiful trails that we have all of the cool attractions that we have in the city and just a really great mountain getaway. So we have to pivot. We don't have a choice in those cases, but we don't know for sure how fast approaching that is.

So we just take it year by year.

GILGER: Take it year by year, yeah. So in terms of the city looking at a climate action plan going forward, is there a sense there in Flagstaff that you're going to have to rebrand, rethink? You know, it'll be a little bit of a different kind of attraction. Maybe not Phoenix's winter playground, but at least a getaway from the heat.

WARD: Well, we are a four-seasons destination, so the branding, even with climate change, doesn't really evolve that much for most of the seasons. In the wintertime, it would evolve somewhat. But always remember that the mountain skiing starts at 9,500 feet, and with their snowmaking ability, the skiing is probably here, maybe not quite as good as we'd like it, not as much natural snow. But it's here for a long, long while. Longer than we're going to be around, so.