SAM Magazine—Denver, Jan. 22, 2016—The 2016 Assembly, focused on how North American resorts and communities can manage the peaks and valleys of summer visitation and increase visits overall, takes place Jan. 28 at the SIA Snow Show in the Colorado Convention Center. And it's shaping up as the biggest Assembly yet.

Assembly organizer DestiMetrics anticipates attendance of 350 or more from resorts, regional marketing organizations, and the gathering's 30 business partners, making this an impressive industry-wide collaboration to build year-round mountain tourism.

Speakers cover a remarkable range: Jeff Suffolk of Human Movement, Nick Sargent, incoming president to SnowSports Industries America, Ken Gart, Colorado bike czar for Gart Companies, and Bill Furlong, vice president of HomeAway. They complement resort industry leaders such as Tom Marano, CEO of Intrawest Resorts, Christian Knapp, vice president of marketing for Aspen Skiing Company, NSAA president Michael Berry, and Paul Pinchbeck, president and CEO of the Canadian Ski Council. Presentations promise to be lively and thought-provoking.

The agenda itself is designed to encourage the sharing of information on managing the periods of peak visitation in summer, and strategizing about how to best fill the valleys. Resorts are increasingly filled to capacity for significant stretches of the winter season; as a result, summer tourism offers the greatest room for growth. “The Assembly shifts the discussion to the shoulder season ‘valleys' where resorts have plenty of capacity. It is a growing problem for mountain communities and becoming more acute each year,” said Assembly organizer Ralf Garrison of DestiMetrics.

The morning sessions will lay out the state of the winter business, provide an outlook for summer, dive into the economics of year-round tourism, and outline areas for future growth.

Afternoon sessions will examine in detail a dozen specific topics that will shape that future, from events and bicycle tourism to the differences in consumer shopping habits for winter and summer and the very different profiles of summer and winter guests. SAM editor Rick Kahl will lead a discussion of how resorts are expanding facilities and operations in summer, and how the Forest Service is approaching this expansion on federal lands.

Last but not least: how will the sharing economy and “alternative accommodations” such as vacation rentals by owners impact business, for better and worse?

Not surprisingly, with an agenda that full, the program begins at 9 a.m. and runs until 6 p.m., followed by a networking reception where discussions are sure to continue into the evening—and well into the future.

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