A visitor who comes for a tasting menu also books a room, rents gear, browses the boutiques and has a nightcap down the street. The Harvard team’s finding that restaurants rarely crowd out other businesses fits that picture: good kitchens tend to attract neighbors rather than replace them.
Colorado shows how seriously resort towns take this. When the Michelin Guide arrived in the state in 2023, Aspen and Snowmass Village, along with Vail and Beaver Creek, were among the few areas inspectors covered. According to The Colorado Sun, each participating area agreed to pay between $70,000 and $100,000 a year for three years, alongside roughly $135,000 from the Colorado Tourism Office. In 2026, those deals gave way to a single statewide agreement. Tourism officials, in other words, are treating a restaurant guide as economic development spending.
The catch: somebody has to cook
This is the part that should matter most to anyone underwriting in a resort town. A dining scene is only as durable as its workforce, and in many vacation markets that workforce can’t afford to live nearby.
In Colorado’s mountain communities, worker shortages have forced restaurants to cut their hours. In the Florida Keys, NPR reported this summer on restaurant workers who serve tourists all day but can’t afford to live in town. Near Telluride, the housing squeeze has become so acute that hotels are being converted to long-term worker housing as vacation rentals take over homes, sometimes ending up in court.
