Mike Keller, general manager of Xanterra’s Yellowstone National Park Lodges, said September has been a busy month in the park’s lodgings, and it’s not expected to slow too much in October. 

“September is a surge for us, and we’re ahead of last year for October reservations,” he said at Thursday’s Park County Travel Council meeting. “So as long as the weather stays good … We expect to be busy.”

Lodging tax is up over last year for the month and overall through August in Park County, which is bucking a declining trend of tourism this year in many tourism meccas across the nation. According to a July story in Forbes, the World Travel and Tourism Council has projected an 8% decrease in tourism to the U.S. this year. 

While that has led to plummeting tourist numbers in places such as Las Vegas, the Yellowstone region is not experiencing the same trend, although certain businesses have reported some softening, PCTC board chair John Parsons said. 

“Most people expected us to be down,” board member Jill Hartmann said. 

Parsons noted in previous talks with a local business, this year and last have been better than any of the years prior, and while they attributed part of the rise in traffic to the closure of longtime steakhouse staple Cassie’s, local lodging tax numbers back up a strong summer. 

Lodging taxes for August are up 1.2% over last year and so far this year, lodging tax receipts are up 2.5% over last year. 

In July, collections totaled $865,493 and in August $703,499, both ahead of 2024 numbers. Of that money, 10% goes to municipalities and the county, while the rest is used by the council for its purposes, mainly marketing campaigns to draw more people to the area. 

The money comes from a 7% lodging tax, 3% of which is used by the state tourism department and, in Park County, 4% to the local travel council. Yellowstone hotels at Fishing Bridge, Canyon, Tower and Mammoth are amongst the Xanterra lodging properties within Park County. 

The continued increase in tourists in the region could be a result of the increase in late summer, early fall tourism. 

Three of the board’s members run hotels in Cody — Quintin Blair at the Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn and Buffalo Bill Village; Mike Darby at The Irma; and Jake Ivanoff at the Scout Inn — and all said the late “shoulder season” following the traditional final big month of August has been growing and better filling rooms. 

Blair said within the last five years or so they’re seeing as many or more customers in September as in June. 

Ivanoff hasn’t been in the hotel game as long, but even he’s seen it. 

“We’ve been seeing a stronger fall than in the past three years,” he said.