In the past few years, NSAA and its research partner, RRC Associates, have promoted awareness of the coming demographic changes and their impacts on the ski industry. Boulder-based Leisure Trends has been hitting this theme regularly for the past few years as well. Is anyone acting on these warnings?

The clock is ticking. By the year 2020, the first wave of Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1954, now ages 53 to 61), currently the bread and butter of the snowsports industry, will have largely exited the sport. To combat a steep drop-off in snowsports participation over the next decade, RRC’s Nate Fristoe says resorts must start marketing aggressively to several key demographic groups—GenXers and GenYers; immigrants/minorities; the best-educated; second-wave Baby Boomers; and Southerners. Without the participation of these groups, by 2020, lift lines may finally become obsolete—for the worst possible reason.

The warnings are not new. “We’ve been talking about the changing demographic for years,” says Joy Spring of Leisure Trends. But the urgency is growing. Fristoe says that skiing’s D-Day is closing in a whole lot faster than the industry thinks. “We have a maximum seven-to-ten-year window in which we can enjoy current levels of visitation,” he says. James Chung of Reach Advisors, a Boston-area marketing group, says the window’s even smaller for real estate sales, with “only one year left to ride the Baby Boom gravy train” before Boomer buyers begin to decline.

And yet, apart from the big ski conglomerates, few resorts are specifically targeting the key demographic groups of the future. “There’s a stalemate with resorts actually tuning into demographics,” says Chung. The attitude, he says, is that “a lot of these trends aren’t within the ski industry’s control, so we shouldn’t worry about them.” Adds Spring: “Good marketing people will say, ‘I know I need to do more, but I don’t have the time, budget or resources to really do a good job of it.’”

Still, we did find some examples of ski resorts that are already tapping one or more of the key demographic groups. Here’s what they are up to.


The Generational Challenge

Ski resorts must reach out to GenXers (born 1965 to 1977, now ages 31 to 43) and GenYers (born 1978 to 1990, now ages 17 to 30) while holding on to their affluent Baby Boomers as long as they can. The trick is to appeal to all without alienating any.

On this score, the Aspen Skiing Company and Whistler/Blackcomb earn props from the researchers. “Aspen has done a great job of this,” says Fristoe. “Most of their clients have a minimum $200,000 income, but they understand the urgency of the situation and have reached out to youth through the X Games. They position themselves as a youthful destination.”

“Things that drive this life stage are music and parties,” adds Chung . “They’re constants among young adults. That’s what Aspen and Whistler are doing well.”

Stuart Rempel, senior VP of marketing and sales at Whistler, credits three things for his resort’s success with this demographic. First is a unique ticketing structure that features discounted pricing for an unusually wide range of age groups. “Six and unders ski free, that’s the first hook,” says Rempel. There’s also “youth pricing” for 12-to-18-year-olds; a discounted season’s pass for 18-to-25-year-olds; and a half-priced “graduate pass” for college grads ages 25 and up.

“By then, we hope they’re so addicted to the sport it becomes a lifestyle so when they start working, they’re hooked and will stay in the sport,” says Rempel. For those who do, Whistler also offers a $99 season pass to those ages 75 and up.

Second, Whistler has focused heavily on new media, including social networking websites like Facebook and Whistler’s blog about local athletes, untrackedlines.com. “It connects to the Y generation,” Rempel says of the blog. “We’re getting a lot of visits to that site and real engagement with our customers.”

Finally, Rempel says he “makes good use of the locals” to help pull in the youth market. “There are a lot of filmmakers, photographers, and videographers in Whistler. We try to support their craft,” he says. “These skiing and snowboarding films and articles reach kids that you can’t reach through traditional methods of marketing.”

At Aspen, “it all began with the X games,” says PR director Kristin Rust. “We made a conscious decision to bring an event like that to Aspen to get a more youthful eye on our resort. It worked. The whole vibe of the town changes during that week. There’s a new energy, excitement, sexiness to the town. The average age is 20-something. They mingle with the 50- and 60-somethings perfectly.”

Rust also credits the resort’s Bud Light Hi-Fi concert series—free, in-street music concerts held throughout the season—with pulling in the youth market. “It’s a great added value,” she says. “Someone comes here for a ski vacation but also sees a free concert with Super Jam at the base of Snowmass. Young people will be coming back when they know there’s more here than just the mountain.”


The Ethnic Challenge

Reaching out to the growing minority/ immigrant populations—in particular, those who have (or will have) an income that will allow them to enjoy the sport—is an essential strategy for some areas.

Mountain High and the five mountains of Vail Resorts Inc. (Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Breckenridge, and Heavenly) land top spots in this category. “Mountain High is riding this demographic wave like its nobody’s business,” says Chung, in reference to the SoCal resort’s large Hispanic and Asian skier/snowboarder base.

The resort has evolved its strategy over several years. “We didn’t change our business plan overnight,” says John McColly, Mountain High’s director of marketing. “We didn’t just wake up and say we have to go after minorities and this is how we’re going to do it. Every year we make the tweaks necessary to improve and get better established over a number of years.”

The resort’s Hispanic marketing focuses on promotion-oriented partnerships with Hispanic news stations. “Hispanics don’t have a culture of skiing,” says McColly. “We get Hispanic stations and DJs to be our sounding board, our spokespersons. They’re beating the drum, saying, ‘Go skiing and snowboarding.’ ”

For a typical promotion, DJs will broadcast from the resort. Another promo, offered exclusively on Hispanic stations, will feature beginner package giveaways. “We introduce the sport at the ground level,” says McColly, who notes that the resort’s Hispanic skier/snow­boarder base has increased from three to eight percent over the past five years.

On the other hand, McColly says the resort didn’t do anything special to attract its solid Asian base, 22 percent of its visitors. “Asian youth already have an affinity for skiing and snowboarding. They’ve been doing it for years as part of their heritage,” says McColly. “Asian youth are assimilated in American culture through our traditional marketing methods.”

Vail Resorts has partnered with SOS Outreach, a youth diversity program for kids ages 8 to 18, roughly 55 to 65 percent of whom are minorities. “We work with all minorities and children who wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to come up to the mountain,” says Arn Menconi, SOS founder and executive director.

The ski areas donate lift tickets, rentals, and instruction, and SOS partners with youth agencies to transport the kids to the resorts from cities like Denver. Programs, which range in length from two days to four years (after that, some are invited back as junior mentors), combine learning to ski with character development.

“Out of our 3,000 kids, about 300 have now matriculated into this multiple-year program, SOS University, with goals of graduating high school, going on to college, and becoming lifetime skiers and boarders,” says Menconi.

He admits some people question the wisdom of spending money on these kids. “They say, ‘Arn, these aren’t kids who have disposable income,’ ” making it unlikely they’ll stick with snowsports once the program ends. Menconi begs to differ. “Tell that to every boarder who slept four to a one-bedroom apartment,” he says. “So many of us start with no money in this sport, sleeping on a friend’s couch. We were so passionate about our sports when we were young, we did whatever we could to make it happen.”

In fact, Menconi says SOS surveys show a whopping 62 percent retention in the sport. “Without question, this group is being integrated into the sport as adults,” he says. “We can create acculturalization and an assimilation for people who might not otherwise see snowsports as a possibility for themselves.”


The Educated Challenge

Tapping the best-educated segments of our society shouldn’t be all that big a challenge, actually. Many areas offer college passes, which are a good step in both creating new converts and keeping existing snow sliders active and involved.

Eldora, Colo., is taking this idea a step further. Eldora reps visit campuses across its market area and speak to different clubs and organizations about holding ski days at the resort. They’re starting to focus on “emerging markets” too, namely immigrants and minorities, many of whom have never set foot in a ski or snowboard boot.

“I think most ski area operators have recognized that nationally the face of America is changing,” says marketing director Rob Linde. “We have to do something to attract a more diverse market. The thinking is, these are kids that are bright, becoming educated. When they finish school, they’ll get well-paying jobs and have the chance, at least economically, to ski,” says Linde. “Whether it’s a Hispanic or black club or whoever, we talk to them to see if they’d be interested in having a ski event.”

Linde measures his success here by the “many busloads” of minority college students the resort brings in from metro areas and teaches to ski. “We’re trying to be smart in the way we approach it,” says Linde. “We’re being grass roots in nature. One skier at a time.”


The Boomer Retention Challenge

The younger Baby Boomer segment, born 1955 to 1964, now ages 43 to 53, represents the biggest portion of the Boomers and, as such, will make up a great portion of visits over the next 12 years—before they, too begin to drop out in greater numbers.

Utah ski resorts, in general, are doing a great job targeting BB2s. “Utah offers an affordable destination to skiers who can’t afford the stratospheric costs of Vail and Aspen,” says Fristoe. “This is helping to retain the BB2 group.”

“We haven’t been specifically pinpointing this market, but we have been doing a lot of innovative and interactive campaigns that have been grabbing attention from that part of the market,” says Jessica Kunzer, director of communications for Ski Utah.

Kunzer notes that, over the past year, Ski Utah has formed a cooperative campaign with the state’s office of tourism. “This has allowed us to maximize our marketing effectiveness,” she says, including an extensive TV campaign, broadcast on major cable networks in the Southern California market. A sponsor of Warren Miller ski films, Ski Utah was able to include some footage in the campaign.

Ski Utah also made a large-scale media buy on travel websites, including Travelocity and Orbitz, and in Powder, “timed to when people were looking for ski travel.”


The Southern Challenge

Tapping into the growing Southern population to a much greater extent than in the past is another key strategy. By 2030, through a combination of migration and natural internal growth, the South will account for almost 40 percent of the U.S. population.

From a destination standpoint, Colorado resorts do a great job of charming Southerners, in particular those from Florida and Texas—“a huge market,” says Chung—thanks to hard-to-resist offers featuring cheap flights. “Steamboat has established itself in the top tier because of how aggressive they’ve been with air service,” says Chung. “Look at which resorts subsidize air travel out of Miami and Atlanta. That’s one way to match it up.”

Among the Western ski resorts targeting the South with air service deals are Telluride (which offers reduced-fare flights out of Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta); Crested Butte (Dallas); Vail (Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte); Steamboat (Atlanta, Dallas, Houston); and, in Wyoming, Jackson Hole (Atlanta, Dallas). In most cases, the ski resort or local community subsidizes the service by providing a guarantee to the airline that a certain number of seats will be sold.

At the daytripping end, our marketing/trend experts agree the Southern ski areas still have “work to do” to encourage greater day participation in the region, an important first step to creating Southern skiers and boarders. Says Fristoe, “Southernmost areas, the Snowshoe/Mountaincreeks and Wintergreens, have to do an exceptional job of being breeder areas.” But, he notes, many “are inundated with folks on the weekends.

“If you’re living in the Southeast, trying snowboarding for the first time, those areas have to be really good at converting you,” says Fristoe. “You try it over one weekend. If that experience sucks, your chances of graduating to a destination are slim to none.”

And that’s the bottom line for most of the demographic changes facing the industry. For each demographic group, the aim is to make sure that the experience doesn’t just “not suck,” but is as inviting and addicting as possible.


Janice Finnell is a former travel editor for Skiing Magazine.