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Steamboat Springs — This week's lodging forecast is roughly on par with where Steamboat Springs was last year.

The figures, released by the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association, show that the city expects about 5,500 pillows to be occupied tonight. That translates to about 37 percent of available lodging.

At this time last year, the city projected that 5,300 pillows, 35 percent, would be full.

Actual numbers for this week last year were 8,200, or 54 percent.

"I think we're holding our own, from a lodging standpoint," Chamber Executive Vice President Sandy Evans Hall said. "I'll be curious to see how we do in terms of dining and retail, and for that we have to wait until we get the sales tax reports in. : I've been really pleased with the lodging numbers."

Sales tax figures lag two months behind, Evans Hall noted; August figures won't be released until October.

Lodging occupancy figures for the mountain area this weekend are expected to be lower than numbers for downtown and other lodging. Mountain hotels are expected to be 40 percent full tonight, and mountain condos are expected to be at 26 percent occupancy.

Downtown hotels, which hit 94 percent occupancy for this week last year, are forecast to be 59 percent full tonight. Other lodging is expected to be 70 percent occupied.

"It has felt very busy in town for the summer," Evans Hall said. "I think July was significantly up. It seemed like we had definitely more people at the Fourth of July, and the Balloon Rodeo weekend was up over last year."

Evans Hall thinks that overall tourism numbers could come out down this month, because Steamboat's part of the Triple Crown World Series went on for three weeks instead of four.

A solid convention business, however, has helped the lodging occupancy figures, she said.

"We still have a lot of group business, and that tends to show a lot at the two major hotels up there" on the mountain, Evans Hall said, referring to the Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel and the Sheraton Steamboat Resort.

Overall, she said she had been pleased with lodging numbers this summer. The future remains uncertain, however.

"It's hard to know right now what to expect," Evans Hall said.