Anyone who’s ever grown food at elevation knows some crops flourish, while others are hypersensitive to the erratic weather. Others still don’t take root no matter what you try. The goal with any healthy garden is balance — an ecosystem that supports itself year after year.
Generations of business owners who have come and gone or stayed in operation for decades might agree Taos County’s economy is like that.
We have longstanding institutions that operate year-round, like Randall Lumber and Hardware, Taos Mountain Outfitters, the Taos Inn and Mantes Chow Cart. Other businesses are seasonal, like our ski resorts and local rafting companies, and depend on nature to survive. Then there are the many businesses that drew buzz for one season, only to discover Northern New Mexico wasn’t the place they were meant to bloom.
For better or worse, tourism remains a key ingredient Taos County businesses require, to one degree or another, to survive. And that’s unlikely to change soon.
At the same time, Taos County can’t ignore the locally driven economy — the one full-time residents rely upon to buy their food, feed their animals, furnish their homes, take care of their health, and find good-paying jobs.
As this newspaper reported, more than half of Taos business owners say they rely on tourism for over 60 percent of their revenue. We imagine that number would hold (or rise) if the rest of the Enchanted Circle were surveyed.
In the tapestry of rural economies that intersperse the large metropolitan centers nationwide, Taos County offers the potent combination of stunning natural beauty, ample outdoor access, and rich history and culture. It’s a draw to tourists who drive an important sector of our economy, but that sector is simultaneously the cause of some significant sources of economic distress.
As we’ve seen this winter season, the local tourism industry can be unpredictable, leading to losses for owners whose business models rely too heavily on it. There are other downsides: The tourism industry mainly generates low-paying service-sector jobs; it drives up housing prices, displacing local residents; and the wrong kind of outside investment can erode the cultural appeal that, ironically, brings tourists here in the first place.
Outside ownership means less locally generated wealth, too, which is why investing in local small and medium-sized businesses remains crucial. According to a study by McKinsey & Company, 65 percent of workers in non-metropolitan areas are employed by small and medium sized businesses, whose profits go directly to their owners and whose tax payments go toward the communities where they operate.
In addition to the natural resources that are the bedrock of its tourism economy, Taos County has the infrastructure to support more investment in small and medium-sized businesses.
Recent small business grants provided by the Taos County Economic Development Department and support for local entrepreneurship through UNM-Taos HIVE have helped make our local economy stronger. It’s also encouraging to see the revival of business support networks like Taos Merchant Group and the Questa Business Retention and Expansion Program.
In the last 10 years, Kit Carson Electric has run fiber optic to remote corners of the county and continues to be a leader in renewable energy. KCEC has expanded its solar grid to provide 100 percent of its daytime electricity to its customers and is planning a green hydrogen plant proposed for Questa that could create needed jobs.
Through UNM-Taos, we have opportunities for higher learning to develop a sophisticated workforce of knowledge workers, teachers and medical practitioners to support Holy Cross Medical Center, our critical access hospital.
The key missing ingredient remains affordable housing. Taos County groups working on this effort need a breakthrough — and fast — even if it means adopting a plan that has worked somewhere else. It’s time to show locals tangible results that will house the workforce we need to diversify the economy and weather the economic headwinds sure to come, including those that will be fueled by climate change.
Our local businesses need tourism in order to sustain them, but this slow winter tourist season provides a case study demonstrating why economic diversification must be part of Taos County’s future.
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