A combination of mostly good snow and weather, big promos and value-added packages fueled a better than expected start to the winter season.

“It was not nearly as frightful as predicted,” says JJ Toland, communications director at Sugarbush, Vt. Skier visits through January were up about 1,500 over budget, he notes, adding, “our preseason hopes that families who fly out west one or two times a season would ski closer to home have come true.”

Many drive-to resorts have made staying home their main marketing campaign this season. “Our basic campaign is geared at ‘don’t spend a week in Aspen, spend a week here,’” says John McColly, director of marketing at Mountain High, Calif., where that message and good snowfall bumped skier visits up 40 percent over the two-week Christmas holiday. “We’re going after destination visitors. It seems to be working.”

Billboards for Buck Hill, Minn., located in the suburbs of St. Paul-Minneapolis, urge skiers to “stay close to home.” The message, great conditions and the country’s newest and longest Magic Carpet have helped the area to a great start. “We’ve had a very good season so far,” says Jessica Stone Wiltgen, marketing director. “Steady wins the race.”

At Cataloochee, N.C., cold temps helped launch a long and so far strong season. Chris Bates, VP and general manager, says people are telling him that instead of skiing once at Cataloochee and flying out west once or twice, they are skipping the western vacation and skiing more times at closer resorts. “Our numbers are slightly up over average,” he says.


The West
With the rest of the country going after its skiers, just how bad is it out West? Actually, not as bad as feared, and in some cases, downright fantastic.

Taos, N.M., which finally allowed snowboards last spring, could not have picked a better time to expand its market. “We had the busiest Christmas holiday since 98-99,” says Adriana Blake, marketing director. “We had the busiest first three days of January we’ve ever had, and a killer MLK weekend. We usually do not see a bump from that weekend.”

Blake says a lot of factors were at work: lower gas prices (“Texas is driving,” she notes), lift tickets about $20 cheaper than Colorado (“lodging is not much less expensive, but we make up for it with that pricing on tickets”), and, of course, snowboarding.

“With snowboarding our concentration has widened,” Blake says. “We never got guests from Arizona before. We’re seeing quite a few now. We never got a lot of group business. Now we’re concentrating on that much more.”

Taos is also going after the college market, offering a college pass for the first time. “Snowboarding really opened us up to the college market,” she notes. “We just had 150 students from the University of Arizona. That never would have happened in the past. At least half of them were snowboarders.”

At other big destination resorts, the news is not as robust. After 10 years of consistent growth, Big Sky, Mont., is forecasting an eight percent drop in revenue this ski season. “The good news is that every time we update the forecast, the gap gets smaller from the previous forecast,” says Dax Schieffer, director of PR and marketing.

One reason for closing the gap: Big Sky is running lots of promotions and corporate deals. “Great deals with great snow sets us up to create new, loyal guests well into the future, and assist with market share while people are shopping for the best deals,” he says.

At Sun Valley, Idaho, a late start (Dec. 10) and a 30 percent airline seat loss put the resort in the hole early, says Jack Sibbach, director of sales and marketing. After a slow Christmas holiday period, he notes that the January skier count was even with last year, but lodging was more than 20 percent down. “We’re getting a lot more locals, passholders, drivers or people staying one night instead of three or four,” Sibbach says.

Advance bookings, even into the summer, remain down, however, and corporate groups are off dramatically. Sibbach noted the same thing happened after 9/11, and “they came back.” Sibbach says the resort is running several midweek promotions, and still planning to go forward this spring with its new 8-passenger gondola.

The difference between destination and drive resorts is underscored by this year’s numbers at Bogus Basin in Boise, Idaho. “We’re actually benefiting from the tough economy,” says Mike Shirley, general manager. “We’re a close, affordable alternative.” After a late opening (Dec. 17), skiers started coming and haven’t stopped. “We’ve got more revenue than we’ve ever had,” Shirley adds. “Last year we were way ahead, and we’re five percent ahead of that. Skier visits are on a near-record pace.”

There won’t be a skier visit record in Colorado this year. Through Dec. 31 visits were down 7.7 percent despite record snowfall and some incredible deals. Drive markets were keeping the numbers up. Jennifer Rudolph, spokeswoman at Colorado Ski Country USA, says that the local skier passes sold out this season, and a record number of cars went through the Eisenhower Tunnel over MLK weekend.

That’s good, because the Mountain Travel Research Program (MTRiP), which represents 216 mountain properties in Colorado, Utah, California, and British Columbia, reported that the Christmas holiday occupancy rate was down 8.5 percent from last year, and the overall occupancy rates for the entire season are down 18.1 percent. Advance reservations for the remainder of the season remain weak, with bookings for January through April running 20 percent behind.

Meanwhile, bad weather conditions, including flooding that closed many resorts, have hurt the Pacific Northwest. Crystal Mountain, Wash., was down 30 percent through the end of January.


The Rest
Elsewhere, weather, including abundant natural snow and consistently cold temps, helped ski areas shake off the economic doldrums. Crystal Mountain, Mich., which had 130 inches of snow by Jan. 20, was on par with last season. “Considering the economy we could not be more fortunate with the weather,” says Brian Lawson, PR manager.

Boyne’s Michigan operations were running behind last season, but operations in the East were doing very well. Sunday River and Sugarloaf, Maine, with $14 million and $5 million, respectively, in improvements, are both having record years.

“It’s a mix of things,” says Darcy Liberty, communications manager for the two resorts. “Great snow, product and some very aggressive ski and stay packages.” Even real estate is up. Liberty calls this the biggest year ever for real estate sales at Sunday River. “We’ve sold twice as much as we have the last two years,” Liberty says.

Not everybody in the East was going gangbusters. Bolton Valley, Vt., was off 20 percent through January. Mount Snow also had a slow Christmas holiday, but Jan. 2 was the resorts single busiest day since 2004.

But, overall, Eastern areas were feeling fortunate. "Good snow really does trump a down economy," concludes Parker Riehle, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association.