Legend says those magic words — “package it” — are what made Coca Cola and Aunt Jemima. They have done pretty well for the ski business, too, particularly for operators who pursue midweek vacationers. An area’s rate set-up has become far more than just a prayerful estimate of what will cover costs. Rates are now a major selling tool. And in these days of penny-counting comparison-shopping skiers, no area is too small to make use of rate bait in the form of packages.
But, ski area marketers must first realize that a ski package is whatever its organizer says it is: a discounted rate for buying several days’ lift tickets at once or a combination price for lifts and lessons, or a GLM deal that covers equipment as well as lifts and lessons, or a single pricetag set on lifts and lodging or an umbrella rate covering everything the skier spends while he is away from home except entertainment and postcards. (France’s Club Mediterranee even packages unlimited table wine into its ski weeks.)
The classic ski week package was born at Gray Rocks, Quebec, in the mid-thirties and quickly copied throughout the Laurentians as a way of keeping the ski areas busy after the weekend crowds left. Since most lifts were connected to inns, the solution was to fill ’em up by offering seductively low prices covering the complete vacation — Sunday night to Saturday noon, lifts, two daily lessons, three full meals, evening socializing with the instructors doubling as the chief socializers.
New England adopted the ski week, but since few northeastern lift operators were in the innkeeping business, they set a formula, still being used, of offering a lifts-and-lessons combination and hoping local lodge owners will come up with weekly or five-night rates. Two-stop shopping, but, if the lodge-owners cooperate, it works for skiers who come in their own cars. Because of the east’s strong weekend business, packages were organized to bring the new ski weekers in on Sunday night, sleep them through Thursday and ski them through Friday, freeing the facilities in time for the next batch of weekend customers.
The rise of the destination resort-ski area, particularly in the Rockies, came with the substitution of the jet plane for the family car. Places like Aspen and Sun Valley get relatively few weekenders. Their lift users are people who come from far away and who stay at least a week. Thus, the customary Colorado ski week is the six-day/seven-night deal, since most skiers cannot get to the mountain in time to ski on arrival day.
Unlike the east and midwest, Rockies packages usually consist of lifts and lodging under an umbrella price. Because of the prevalence of condominiums and motel-style lodging, meals are rarely included. Pam Conklin of Vail Associates, says, “Vail gets only about 12 per cent beginners, people who have never skied before. Most western destination resorts feel they attract people who already ski and who might not want to take lessons, but I think western resorts have not actively marketed their ski schools as eastern areas do.”
John Rowan of Killington, perhaps the nation’s star packager, offers 19 kinds of ski weeks and finds that 90 per cent of its ski weekers elect to buy lessons. That is unusual. Mt. Mansfield’s only package is six days lifts and lessons for $60; in effect, ski school is free. Many areas feel such compulsory lessons scare away experienced skiers and so the trend is toward optional lessons, a move which might hobble the ski school, but as one operator put it, “Create a better vacation experience and give us a repeat customer.” Rowan, however, thinks it is ski lessons that create happier customers.
The Ski 93 group of six New Hampshire resorts found that their lifts-only package was equally as popular as the lifts-plus-lesson deal. Now the group suggests that new skiers should buy a lesson package for a single mountain while experienced skiers buy an interchangeable lifts-only ticket.
The most recent package idea is the “quickie vacation.” Most Rockies resorts offer three-day rates, and now eastern areas are picking up the cue. Bromley, for instance, has launched a start-any-day four-day GLM package. And, last year’s gas crisis inspired many eastern areas to arrange half-price Sunday night housing.
These days, just about the only non-package time period is over the Christmas and other peak holiday weeks, which means the arriving skier has to stand at the ticket window every day, and pay for his rental equipment and lessons separately. Scott Van Pelt, marketing director at Copper Mountain, says that Copper, like Waterville Valley and a few other resorts, will offer packages for Christmas at a price that is appropriately higher than the non-holiday week packages.
One non-requirement for packages is that they need not be for vacationers. Hunter Mountain, N.Y., for example, has no five-day ticket. Its all-lift ticket costs $11 any day of the week, but it does offer a $20 deal for any two conseccutive days, including Saturday or Sunday. To today’s skier even a buck is an attractive, if small, saving. For the area, the deal means a locked-in customer who can’t be lured elsewhere on his second day.
Among the newest packaging wrinkles are: options for ski tourers, which cover rentals, instruction and/or use fees; eat-around plans that promise variety to skiers locked into MAP lodging; freestyle lessons options; winter camping as an added alternative; ski-our-neighbor deals. Not new, but gaining in popularity are: evening social events such as gluhwein parties, ski movies, chalk talks and children’s packages that include snow-play and indoor nurseries.
The most unusual development in recent years is New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington Valley blanket deal, priced at $24-30 per day depending on accommodations chosen. The only proviso is that the skier buys three days. For his one payment, each adult gets a checkbook-style collections of prepaid vouchers, covering for each day, a day’s lift ticket at one of the five Valley mountains (or 3 touring centers), a ski lesson, a room — tips included — at a choice of 40 lodges (bunk rooms to famous inns), and breakfast and dinner at his choice of 30 cooperating restaurants rather than just the establishment where he is staying. The Association handles the reservation, makes up the individual checkbook and has it waiting at the lodge when the guest arrives (prepaid books get mailed in advance to his home). The book has an array of extras, such as discounts at shops, saunas and free tennis and indoor swimming from 30 more participants. The program was new this winter and was a great success, according to the Chamber of Commerce director, David Ingemie. He introduced a similar plan the previous summer and reports that it brought in large numbers of customers and relatively few operative hassles.
Getting Skiers to Fly-in
Airlines, it should be recognized, have played a major role in the shape of ski week packaging. Some of the things destination resorts do is the result of air line practices, not resort needs. However, even if your area does not expect to get many skiers who arrive by air (or by train or scheduled bus, their practices are similar), it is worth knowing the mysterious rites of airline packaging.
Towards 1970, ski areas were adopting “IT in the CATM,” pronounced eye-tee in the cat-um.
CATM is the Consolidated Air Tour Manual, published jointly by the airlines belonging to the Air Traffic Conference, which is the domestic carriers’ equivalent of the better known international carriers’ IATA. In August, 20,000 copies of the CATM Ski-Winter Sports catalogue, one of four annual compendia, is distributed free to travel agents and tour desk personnel at airlines. The 1974-75 manual had 192 pages of ski package descriptions from 69 different tour operators (i.e. resort associations, travel wholesalers or individual hotels).
Each CATM listing describes the rates and contents of specific packages that can be sold to the public by the carriers and travel agents. The packages need not be tied into special air rates but they must be commissionable to travel agents. Each is assigned an identifying number, beginning with the letters IT, which stands for inclusive tour.
To be listed, a package must cover at least two nights’ of lodging and one additional feature which for skiing, is usually lift tickets. (Vail has packages that includes lodging and one gondola ride; that suffices for both the CATM and the non-skiing vacationer). The offering must first be approved by the ATC. If the tour is offered for six months or less, the ATC requires that 500 promotional folders be distributed by the packager. If for more than six months, then 5,000 brochures must be circulated. The final requirement: $250 is charged for each page-side the listing occupies. To get listed, start by contacting CATM, Box 849 Miami, Florida 33137; (305) 633-4839.
How does a listing benefit you? Those 20,000 copies become your message to the travel industry, the one source of information about your facilities and prices that is available to all those in a position to sell your area to their customers. Even if no public carrier serves your area, you might get business from travel agents — providing you pay commissions. To your customers, the fact that your package has an IT number means it might qualify them for a reduced air fare, known as a tour-basing fare or a Group Inclusive Tour fare. For most resorts, ski or non-ski, buying an IT package does not necessarily save the buyer money on lodging, lifts or other features. The saving comes from his air fare. This underscores an important point for areas that rely on automobile passengers rather than airline passengers: A package does not have to be a cut-rate giveaway in order to lure skiers. (Prices, however, must be formalized and publicized, even if you put in footnotes saying “subject to change.” Air tour prices do stay for period announced.)
Questions for a Package-Framer
- Where do our skiers come from and how do they get here? How long do they stay? Can we get them to stay longer?
- What other skiers could we attract? Different region? Different type? Longer stay?
- Does the mountain company own any housing facilities? If not, are there any lodge-owners nearby who will cooperate on promotion, announce firm and fixed special rates, honor bookings made via travel agents, carriers or a community reservations office? Remember, if you can’t deliver beds at Christmas and mid-February, you are unlikely to sell lodging packages to agents in January.
- Is your aim to build (midweek) lift business? Would it help to attract more skiers on Monday and Friday, rather than holding out for five-day customers? By pushing five-day deals, are you ignoring the opportunity to make weekenders into mini-vacationers?
- What is your profit relationship to your ski school? If you benefit from every sale, could you succeed in selling lift packages only to people who bought lifts-and-lessons? Could you maintain a big enough instruction season through the slow periods? Would you be better off offering lessons as an option but pushing them more aggressively? Suppose you varied the traditional pattern of packaging daily lessons? (Big Mountain, for example, concentrates its packaged classes during the first days of the ski weeks, leaving the thus-improved skier to ski around on his own Thursday and Friday.) Or, how about using a freestyle or touring lesson to spark multi-lesson sales?
- Do you have good potential for learn-to-ski business? Do you have a GLM-type deal?
- How about weekend series or packages for non-consecutive days? If Wednesday is traditionally Doctors’ Day at your area (or Ladies’ Day or Students’ Day), how about a series of Eight Wednesdays at a special price?
- Is your area in the midst of a bustling resort-like community or would you “dress the set” by adding inexpensive evening activities and making them part of the package?
