Jake Jorgenson, RRC Associates’ chief operating officer, presented the recent results of RRC’s 2023 research, part of the larger multi-year Breckenridge Expectations Project, to the January 24th Breckenridge Town Council meeting. For the project, RRC has sent out surveys every other year since 2017 to get a pulse on the community’s satisfaction and expectations. The 2021 and 2023 surveys both focused on quality of life and future needs, while 2023’s survey stressed tourism’s impact on the community. The 2019 survey focused on summer season impacts, while the 2017 survey focused on winter season impacts.
One of the latest research findings from 2023 is that most Breckenridge residents don’t recommend living in Breckenridge, which is primarily due to issues with limited housing availability and lack of affordable housing. The study’s goal was to get different community viewpoints to better understand why residents are hesitant to recommend Breckenridge as a place to live.
The Council also wanted to know if some survey respondents gave gloomy answers to discourage people from coming. Jorgenson commented that he’s seen that trend in other popular vacation destination communities. “We actually see that sometimes in our visitor surveys that we do, too,” Jorgenson said. “People that are like ‘No, I come here every year. I’m not going to tell anybody else to come here. I want to keep it to myself.’”
Jorgenson also noted that over the years, the issues related to roads and traffic have been a consistent problem, “when it comes to crowding, what people tend to remember are those big events … big kinds of traffic jams and bad days on I-70.” On a positive note, there has been improvement since the 2017 survey that showed the busy grocery stores and empty shelves are less of a problem now.
Survey respondents’ top future priorities to address included supporting local businesses and maintaining a sense of community, in addition to managing the overcrowding. The Council talked about the need to promote tourism for the economy and also improve the overcrowding situation, a tough balancing act.
RRC Associates conducts community research around the US.