San Luis Valley tourism growth driven by lodging tax and regional strategy

This article appears in the Summer 2026 issue of ColoradoBiz under the title, “San Luis Valley looks to tourism for future growth.”

Occupying 8,200 square miles at an average elevation of 7,664 feet above sea level in south-central Colorado, the San Luis Valley is the world’s largest alpine valley.

It’s also one of the least densely populated places in the state, with just about 50,000 residents across that vast swath. And it’s undeniably one of the weirdest spots in Colorado, with legends of UFOs, energy vortices, and crystal skulls, along with the Colorado Gators alligator farm, and the anomaly of silica that is the Great Sand Dunes.

Oddities aside, economic development isn’t easy here. There’s a dearth of high-paying jobs and affordable housing, labor and funding are hard to come by, and the valley’s remote location brings additional challenges. Coal is a thing of the past, potato farming and other agriculture is an uneasy linchpin, and most local economic development professionals see tourism as an increasingly key driver of growth.

“So much of our economy relies on ag production,” says Sarah Stoeber, executive director of San Luis Valley Development Resources Group, the valley’s primary economic development organization.

Agriculture’s ever-modernizing automation means fewer jobs, and Stoeber is trying to figure out what could replace them in the future. “I haven’t found that yet, but that’s the golden egg,” she says.

Could tourism be that gilded ovum? In Alamosa, the valley’s largest city (pop. 10,000), lodging taxes are up about 30 percent since 2020, and Stoeber sees runway for more growth in the tourism industry valley-wide. Alamosa “Regionalizing that tourism model would elevate that whole sector even more as we continue to work on creating reasons for people to stay here instead of just pass through,” she says.

Kale Mortenson, executive director of local visitors bureau Visit Alamosa, sees an opportunity to do just that by latching onto booming visitation at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, which jumped from about 300,000 in 2015 to 430,000 in 2025.

Alamosa has emerged as a great base for exploring the park and surrounding valley, he says, citing businesses like the award-winning Friar’s Fork restaurant and Mammoth, a gift shop that also encompasses the Spud Cafe. A new 90-room SpringHill Suites hotel is under construction in downtown Alamosa, a first. “That’s going to change the face of downtown,” says Mortenson.

With the arrival of glamping and other lodging elsewhere in the valley, Mortenson is keen on bringing a more cooperative strategy to tourism marketing. “How do we support a regional approach to it?” he says. “The valley’s six counties. Each county has their own lodging tax and their own identity.” Alamosa County, for example, has a 2 percent lodging tax along with a 4 percent marketing district tax, whereas Rio Grande County’s lodging tax is 1.9 percent.

The San Luis Valley Tourism Association, founded by the Young family of Colorado Gators, has attempted to do just that, but it lacks a designated funding source, says Mortenson, who chairs the organization’s board. It occasionally spearheads maps and brochures, but all recent campaigns are one-off projects. “That really limits the impact of what we can do.”

Mortenson gave a presentation at a board meeting in late April to “spark some ideas” and start a conversation. “What could it look like if we converted our funding towards a regional DMO [destination marketing organization]?” he says. “What would that look like, and what would that mean, and what are some advantages of that? It has to be all six counties coming on board and in agreement with it to make it a thing.”

“With the siloed approach, there’s some effectiveness to it,” Mortenson continues. “If we pull all those things together while protecting and maintaining the character and the identity of each area, your audience base and what you’re able to appeal and draw on is much larger. I think it gives us a competitive advantage.”

Valley-wide lodging spending was about $50 million in 2025. An additional 2 percent tax would bring in $1 million. “It’s absolutely a big economic driver of the area, and that’s doing it with a siloed approach,” says Mortenson. “There’s a way of leveraging that and building a stronger brand around it.”

Mortenson cites Visit Central Oregon, which includes Bend, as a model. “They have a four-county, 12-city DMO,” he says. “This is what it could look like for us if we were to fund this organization between $500,000 and $900,000.”

Ameille Warner, executive director of Saguache County Sustainable Environment and Economic Development (ScSEED) on the north side of the valley, says tourism could catalyze long-term, sustainable growth. “It’s that horrible word, potential, which I personally hate, but the potential is there. I can see it,” she says. “It just takes a lot of work and a lot of people coming together to move the big boulders forward.”

“There’s a lot of overlap between tourism and economic development,” Warner adds. “They’re intertwined, these great, big cogs that need to be greased. And the grease is money. . . . The problem [with the existing San Luis Valley Tourism Association] is there’s no general funding.”

Warner sees value in a regional approach, but notes that there is some local resistance to increasing lodging tax, which is currently 2 percent in Saguache County. “Our commissioners have talked about bumping it up to 6 percent, but tourism generally wouldn’t get that money, and yet, the lodging tax would impact the tourism stakeholders,” says Warner.

Skip Schoen, Rio Grande County Administrator and a board member at Upper Rio Grande Economic Development (URGED), also sees tourism as a good economic engine for the southwestern San Luis Valley. “I think there’s tremendous opportunity on the recreation and tourism side,” says Schoen. “The west end of Rio Grande County is a really prime area for recreation and tourism with the town of South Fork.”

“There is a lot of interest in finding Colorado mountain towns that check off several requirements: a ski area nearby; a river for fishing, rafting, that kind of thing; some entertainment and arts in the area. Those ingredients are there for South Fork. It’s just that there hasn’t been a lot of appetite for investment, because other areas offer more in terms of some of those things.”

Schoen points to Salida and Buena Vista as models for tourism-centered economic development in Colorado, and he says he wants to replicate the blueprint. “At least two of our municipalities, Del Norte and South Fork, have the potential for a Buena Vista-Salida-like environment,” he says. “But there’s a lot of challenges with that. As the popularity grows, affordability goes out the window.”

URGED “made a concerted effort to pitch the concept of a local marketing district that is in compliance with statute, that’s funded by lodging tax, and it just didn’t resonate, particularly in South Fork, with the lodgers who would have to put that on their nightly rates,” says Schoen.

“We’ve seen it happen in numerous other areas where an additional 2 to 4 percent of lodging tax was added on to the existing lodging tax, up to the state maximum of 6 percent, and there was no negative impact. Their visitation did not drop off. In fact, it increased within the marketing money.”

Lured by the dark skies and limited competition, Gamal Jadue Zalaquett bought 40 acres north of Alamosa for Kosmos Stargazing Resort in 2020. “If you go to Joshua Tree, if you go to Yellowstone, if you go to Rocky Mountain National Park, there are all these Airbnbs, hotels, motels, places to stay nearby,” says Jadue Zalaquett. “Here at the Great Sand Dunes National Park, there are only two other alternatives, the Great Sand Dunes Lodge and the Rustic Rook Resort, which are both open seasonally. In winter, we’re literally the only ones open.”

At Kosmos, Jadue Zalaquett invested about $500,000 himself, then raised another $2 million in crowdfunding and $1.5 million from traditional investors. Thus far, he’s built five stargazing villas using hempcrete and other sustainable materials.

The resort welcomed its first guests in 2025, and Jadue Zalaquett is pleased with the results. “People are paying $700 per night,” he says. “It’s proving the concept.” His ultimate vision for Kosmos includes 37 units, spa, and central stargazing park with “the largest telescope in Colorado” by 2028.

Affordable housing and staffing are his biggest challenges to realizing the vision, so Jadue Zalaquett is taking matters into his own hands as a developer on 1,000 acres he bought near Kosmos. “I want to propose a major subdivision,” he says. “Land is very affordable here.”

With domed villas and off-grid utilities, Kosmos’ one-of-a-kind architecture is a perfect fit for the San Luis Valley. It’s hard to overstate the level of quirkiness here. From the Crestone Zigurrat to Colorado Gators to the UFO Watchtower to not one, but two lodgings built around old drive-in movie theaters, the San Luis Valley easily has a long weekend’s worth of oddities and offbeat attractions.

While they don’t take it as far as their counterparts in Roswell, New Mexico, Visit Alamosa is more than happy to help visitors look for UFOs. “There’s absolutely an audience for them, so we don’t shy away from it,” says Mortenson.

It’s not part of the broader economic development strategy, however. “That is one of those mystical things,” laughs Stoeber. “People have sightings and there’s stuff that we can’t explain. It makes me curious, but I sure don’t know how to leverage it other than just curiosity.”

Not that she’s opposed to roadside Americana: “What I think we really need is a mega-potato structure. Let people climb on it just like the UFO Watchtower. People would take a picture of it.”

Online:

• San Luis Valley Development Resources Group: www.slvdrg.org
• Visit Alamosa: www.alamosa.org
• Upper Rio Grande Economic Development: www.urg-ed.com
• Saguache County Sustainable Environment and Economic Development: www.scseedco.org
• Kosmos Stargazing Resort: www.kosmosresort.com