The Sedona Chamber of Commerce and city of Sedona staff are forecasting a decline in tourism that the chamber expects will continue into 2024. Members of Sedona City Council have expressed confidence that tourism — and its dependent sales and bed tax revenues — will remain high. Here’s what some of Sedona’s business owners and managers have to say.
Arroyo Pinion Hotel
“Occupancy’s been down since May,” general manager Lonnie Lillie said. For October, he observed that it was down by 22% compared to October 2019.
“At this point, yes,” Lillie said when asked if he expects this situation to continue into next year. “Without us marketing, I don’t anticipate things getting any better.”
Barlow Adventures
“August of this year was the worst year we’ve ever had. Since 2009,” Nena Barlow told the city council on Nov. 9. “Our Sedona Jeep rental operation is down 43% from last year.”
“Only 33% of our visitors are overnight stays and that is not visitors that are going to do things like rent our Jeeps,” Barlow elaborated. “Most of our long-time customer base are multiple-day renters. Three days, seven days — they’re doing the whole Southwest, not just Sedona. But obviously, they’re not really coming these days.”
“Election years — even-numbered years — are always a little lower,” Barlow noted. Also, “we don’t have our international visitors quite coming back yet … we don’t have the consumer confidence.”
Barlow offered the council a “plea for funding for destination management.”
“We don’t want any and all to come to Sedona,” she said. “We want people who are going to come here and respect our trails and respect our community … If you’re going to come here, tread lightly.”
“Let’s get this destination managed,” said Mary Leas, Barlow’s Sedona location manager. “Have you guys been around the hiking areas lately? It’s not one problem, it’s all problems.”
The Dream Catcher
“This year so far we’re up about 25% from last year, which is good,” Uptown retail store owner Erroll Foldes said. “This past February was a huge increase over the prior year. January and February and March we were up and then, inexplicably, April and May were down … August we were down, actually, and then September we were up 59% … Usually October and November are gigantic. They used to be our largest months. This past October, November, I was very disappointed. Usually after Labor Day everything explodes and we’re really ‘in season.’ But this year it just wasn’t to be.”
“Once COVID hit, we lost all our international travelers,” Foldes continued. Asked if international travel has recovered, he replied that it has not. “Although I’ve noticed a dropoff in international travelers, it doesn’t seem to have put as much of a dent in our overall sales. We’re above last year even without the international travelers. So it seems like there’s more people getting out there, even from Phoenix.”
“We never know what the next day’s going to be like,” Foldes said of next year. “That’s the one thing that we’ve learned — to use a cliché, the only constant is change … The only thing you can really tell is there’s two busier times and that’s the spring and the fall … Even having been here 16 years, I can’t explain it. If it isn’t a recession, then it’s a pandemic.”
Kachina House
“There have been ups and downs,” said Judy Frank, coowner of the West Sedona shop. “We’re fine, because for us, tourism extends to more than just visitors to Sedona … We sell on the [reservation], we’re wholesale to stores and we sell to people who walk into the store … Even when there’s a downturn here, we still have other sources of income.”
“All of the old ways of predicting business are gone,” Frank added. “Tuesday always used to be our slow day and now you don’t know. The fall used to be our busy time. This year, September was not busy. October picked up.”
Frank mentioned that she expects future tourism numbers to fluctuate depending on inflation and gas prices.
RE/MAX Sedona
The real estate market in Sedona “was very, very good until probably August. It’s not dropped like a rock like the news is trying to say,” RE/MAX Sedona owner Rob Schabatka commented. “Buying power is greatly diminished with the interest rates. That doesn’t affect a large number of Sedona buyers, but it does affect the working people who need financing.”
“The first eight months was a frenzy,” Schabatka said. “It’s kind of pulled back since then. It’s still Sedona. People still want to come. People still want to live here. I don’t think the economic downturn this time is a real estate crisis.”
Sedona Wonder
“Our year started out with the continuation of the boom from the post-pandemic revenge travel for like two months, maybe three and then things dropped back to normal levels,” store owner Michael Blevins said. “Which felt like a very big drop because they had been exceedingly high. It didn’t really catch us by surprise, though, because that’s what we expected.”
“January, February, we’re still booming, booming like never before,” Blevins explained. “In March, April, it started creeping down a little bit and then by summertime, we were consistently down 30% each month and that’s stayed pretty much — a couple percentages up and down — until now … We’re pretty much right on par with 2019, which wasn’t a bad year. We’re still doing on par or even a little bit better than five years ago, 10 years ago, but nothing like last year.”
“The numbers are inflated somewhat because prices went up, hugely,” Blevins added. “So even though the actual number amount of revenue that we’re taking in is higher than in 2018, 2019, we had to raise our prices on everything since 2018.”
“I’m optimistic,” Blevins said of the future. “More people discovered Sedona post-pandemic, especially people who — it’s easy for them to get here, Southern California and the West Coast states especially … so I think we’ll continue to be a little incrementally busier than normal years. “In a normal year, international travel is a big part of our business, probably 30% at least. Primarily Japan, U.K., Germany, Canada and Italy. We only started seeing international customers again this summer and we haven’t seen anywhere near the numbers of 2019. If the international customers were to come back at the levels that they were here in 2019, combined with that additional number of domestic people who have sort of discovered Sedona … I think we’d be doing good.”
White Light Crystals, Books & Angels
“Except when we were closed for COVID [business has] been pretty good, pretty steady,” store manager David Bradley said. “We’re probably one of the last stores in town that ask people to wear masks, so some turn the other way, but apart from that it’s been pretty good.”
Looking ahead to next year, Bradley was hopeful. “I think it’s going to be better,” he said. “I think there’s going to be a recession and there’s going to be tough times, but we charge everything very inexpensively, so that’ll probably help us out. We’re about the least expensive stone store in town.”
The Wilde Resort
“I’m fortunate at The Wilde,” manager Jay Kriske told council. “I’m not seeing declines in occupancy. But we’re a totally different hotel. I do know there’s a lot of restaurants that have gone from 1½ years ago not being able to find employees, closing on multiple days a week, to, now we’re trying to stay open, we don’t have customers and we’re trying to keep our people busy.”
“Occupancy went up, average rates went up,” Kriske said of the pandemic-era boom. “In the last three months, some of the hoteliers have tried to lower their rates to drive demand and they’ve actually resulted in lower occupancy, lower rates. Now it seems like last month, a little more rate confidence came back, knowing that — if people aren’t coming, they’re not coming. It doesn’t matter if you make it two dollars.”
“No one’s in a position to lower their rates, because costs just keep getting more and more expensive,” Kriske said. “Nothing’s getting cheaper; everything’s getting more expensive.
“The laundromat up the street — I was there the other day and the owner asked me, ‘When is tourism coming back? I’m dying here … It isn’t locals washing their clothes here, it’s tourists.’ She’s very, very concerned for her future.”
