Sand Dunes attract more than 400,000 visitors, again

For the eighth consecutive year the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve has crossed the 400,000 visitor mark and continues to be the fuel for tourism in the six-county San Luis Valley.

But the national park is also showing signs of leveling off on visitor growth, with the expected visitation for 2024 representing the lowest annual mark since the Great Sand Dunes first eclipsed 400,000 visitors in 2017.

Through October, visits to the Great Sand Dunes sat at 418,751 for the year, with another 19,000 or so visitors expected in November and December based on averages for those months over the past seven years. 

Last year the national park logged 512,219 visitors, exceeding the 493,428 visitors in 2022.

Here’s a look at the annual visitation figures:

2023 – 512,219

2022 – 493,428

2021 – 602,613*

2020 – 461,532

2019 – 527,546

2018 – 442,905

2017 – 486,935

*COVID year

Kale Mortensen, executive director for Visit Alamosa, said the national park’s growth and steady pattern of 400,000-plus visitors a year has helped local efforts to drive tourists to other destinations in the SLV.

“We market to push our visitors beyond the park and potentially are starting to see that impact with other outdoor activities and attractions drawing visitation. We are also seeing an increase in occupancy for the fall months which has been a seasonal focus for our marketing efforts,” he said.

The bulk of the Great Sand Dunes annual visitors come during May through September, with June and July typically the busiest months. This year, June brought more than 83,000 visitors and July nearly 76,000 to the national park and then beyond across the Valley. 

A traveler can’t enter or escape the Great Sand Dunes National Park without traveling through the Valley’s stretched-out communities. It’s that annual traffic that Visit Alamosa tries to harness and deliver to other local tourist destinations.

“We are also seeing group travel starting to pick back up, which often focuses their trips around railroads. We look at GSDNP reports and other data sources as pieces to a puzzle. When we look at them together we get a better feel for the trends and visitor behavior,” Mortensen said.

Like the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad is another attraction helping drive more travel into the Valley. The scenic railroad, which passes through both Colorado and New Mexico, reported increases in train rides in 2023 over 2022, with its Holiday Express train ride up 13 percent last year and bookings for 2024 showing demand, according to minutes from the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad Commission.

In 2023 the Great Sand Dunes National Park – managed by the U.S. Department of Interior and its National Park Service – cut the ribbon on a new interactive visitor center. This year, its focus has been on transportation and transit planning to accommodate the increased visitor patterns that the national park has been experiencing since 2017.

“We are working through a planning effort to focus on relieving congestion and improving opportunities for the public to have a more enjoyable and safe experience when they visit the park,” Park Superintendent Andrea Compton said back in February when the Great Sand Dunes invited community members for input.
Listen to The Valley Pod episode with Superintendent Andrea Compton for more insights on the Great Sand Dunes National Park.