Examining Workforce Housing as Tourism Infrastructure

RISE TRAVEL INSTITUTE
Capstone | Tourism, Real Estate, and Community Resilience

Business Need

Colorado’s ski-resort towns depend on tourism for employment, tax revenue, and economic activity. They also face intense real estate pressure as limited land, second-home demand, short-term rentals, and high development costs affect where the people who support the tourism economy can live.

The research asked a broader question: What happens to a destination when the workers responsible for operating it can no longer afford to remain in the community?

The Space Between

Tourism growth and housing affordability are often treated as separate policy issues. In resort communities, however, they are part of the same operating system. Housing conditions influence workforce availability, commuting patterns, local businesses, public services, and ultimately the quality and reliability of the visitor experience.

Traditional real estate indicators can explain price and supply, but they do not fully capture how housing instability moves through the rest of a destination’s economy and community.

Working in System

For my capstone, I examined tourism’s influence on the real estate markets and community ecosystems of internationally recognized Colorado ski towns. The research considered how visitor demand, land constraints, housing costs, workforce needs, and local economic dependence interact over time.

Rather than viewing workforce housing only as a social benefit, I analyzed it as a form of tourism infrastructure. This framing connected housing availability to labor supply, business continuity, municipal capacity, and the long-term resilience of the destination.

The project also examined the roles available to local government, employers, developers, investors, and community organizations. This made it possible to consider housing interventions not as isolated programs, but as parts of a broader place-based investment strategy.

Impact

The capstone produced a clearer framework for understanding why workforce housing belongs in conversations about tourism strategy, real estate development, and economic resilience.

Its central conclusion was that the success of a destination cannot be measured only through visitor volume, property values, or short-term revenue. A tourism economy also depends on whether the people who sustain it can continue to live and participate in the community.