Typically Memorial Day weekend means an influx of travelers and increased business to a place like Bozeman.
"The last few years we've actually see a little bit of an increase in traffic coming through over Memorial Day Weekend," said Elias Harmon, General Manager of the C'mon Inn Hotel in Bozeman.
But most people expect sunshine over their holiday weekend. Bozeman is infamous for wet and gray weather over Memorial Day weekend, which can sometimes help local businesses.
"I would say that most people, if they planned their trip, they're going to go ahead and take their trip. And frankly, if the weather's not really great, they stand to be more likely to shop as opposed to hike or bike or fish," said Babs Noelle, owner of Alara Jewelry in downtown Bozeman.
"With the weather it's kind of a double-edged sword because some of the reservations that you get, people aren't able to make it because of weather sometimes. And sometimes people look outside, see it's snowing and then they don't necessarily want to leave, so they'll stay for another night," Harmon said.
Harmon says bad weather means travelers are more likely to head to hotels than stay outside and camp, which means increased business.
Many businesses say Memorial Day weekend signals the start of busy summer months.
"It's an influx of people that are regional, it's an influx of people that are form far away. I mean it is kind of the traditional start to summer," said Noelle.
"It's kind of pre-summer traffic. It starts to pick up from the off season which is the winter months and then when summer hits, weekends are all crazy," said Harmon.
Local businesses may have an advantage when it comes to holiday consumers, because they give a local taste to shoppers who typically aren't from the area.
"It doesn't say a whole lot to return form Montana and you have the exact same t-shirt from the exact same chain store that you could have bought in your own town, whereas it's a little more meaningful to get something that was hand selected or perhaps, in our case, even hand made from a store in Montana to take home as a memory," Noelle said.
The C'mon Inn says they increase employee numbers and move many up from part-time to full-time at this time of year to be prepared for busy travel months, starting with Memorial Day weekend.
