Speaker after speaker used new terms to talk about a shrinking, aging market made increasingly competitive by the lack of new ski areas and the increase in the number of non-ski alternatives for winter vacationers.
The stakeholders they referred to are the people who tell ski resorts how to run their business because they feel they have a stake — formerly known as an “interest” — in the outcome. The Sierra Club is often a stakeholder, as is the county government, the state water board, etc. Stakeholders figured in former Vail president Mike Shannon’s talk about limitations on growth that discourage ski area investors. It popped up in Vail vice president Kent Meyer’s talk about how areas can react to environmental concerns.
“Adventure dining” differs from ordinary restaurant-going in that tomorrow’s customers will pay ski areas to let them come to table via snowmobile, sleigh or dog sled. It represents one of many non-ski activities that various speakers said skiers now expect ski areas to provide. Children’s dinner theater, climbing walls and environmental education centers are among the others.
“Second-half planning” and “retirement” are among the aspects of an aging America that spell good news for wily ski areas. That there will soon be fewer Americans in the 18 to 34 bracket is not bad news, said Mark Goldstein of Age Wave, Inc., who gave one speech and three workshops on how the growing number of affluent, active, long-lived seniors provide a fertile market for ski operators. “Rehirement” once they retire, many in this generation will go back to school or to work.
As people live longer, said Goldstein, they will plan to spend the second half of their long lives seeking adventures such as ski vacations. Resorts need to cater to seniors by offering adventures along with comfort and convenience, and promoting with non-ageist advertising that makes the seniors look attractive and romantic.
“Boinking” emerged in one of several discussions in which snowboarders were mentioned as the possible saviors of a ski industry that, within a decade, will have to start thinking of itself as “the snow sports industry.” Stephanie Neff of the California Ski Industry Association pointed out that her state was one in which the number of teenagers was increasing and predicted new snowboarders will increasingly come, not from the ranks of skiers, but of the state’s plentiful supply of surfers and skateboarders.
She noted that several California areas had created snowboard parks containing such interest-building obstacles as a buried Cadillac or taxi. Snowboarders use those to “boink,” that is, see if they can jump over the obstacle close enough to make it emit a “boink” sound.
This led to questions from the floor about the co-existence of young snowboarders and aging skiers. One questioner noted that at one of the snow parks, “After the snowboarders boinked the cars, they started boinking skiers.” (Anti-boink insurance, anyone?)
