With the recession taking a toll on discretionary spending, ski resorts are taking a hard look at what they offer visitors to eat and drink. Not surprisingly, many are getting indigestion.

“Food and beverage tends to be the area with the lowest customer satisfaction scores at ski resorts,” says Dave Belin, director of consulting services at RRC Associates out of Boulder, Colo.

Belin says high cost and low quality are skiers’ biggest beefs. “The biggest complaint is value, which for a lot of people includes the quality of the food and the quality of the experience in the cafeteria or restaurant—too crowded, no place to sit, etc. Poor value tends to be the biggest source of dissatisfaction,” he says.

“The scary thing about value is how it affects people’s buying decisions,” adds Evan Reece, co-founder of Liftopia, an online company that sells date-specific, discounted lift tickets at 120 ski resorts. “When people buy lift tickets, food and beverage, lodging, lessons, rentals or whatever, they’re doing a value calculation. They’re trying to see what the value is of that component. If people see food and beverage as not a great value, it impacts their value calculation and whether they’re interested in purchasing it.”

And indeed, that value calculation took a hit on sales of food and beverage last winter. “Food and beverage was definitely down for ski areas last winter, both gross F&B revenues, as well as revenues per skier visit,” Belin says.

Individual resorts confirm those findings. At Okemo, Vt., discretionary spending on all items, including F&B, was down last winter. That trend continued through the summer. “We saw a decline in the number of people eating at our golf course,” says Rick Doyle, manager of the Sitting Bull Restaurant at the base. “They were opting for other options, more picnics, eating at home.”

Discretionary spending was also way down at Whitefish, Mont. “Skier visits were flat last year, but purchases of food and beverage, retail, ski school, dropped significantly,” says Donnie Clap, Whitefish PR manager.

At Saddleback, Maine, Carol Moore, F&B manager, says people are brown bagging it more, and buying drinks and French fries instead of full meals. At Killington, Vt., sales of impulse items are down. “We still have the same ratio of brown baggers,” says Scott Harrison, F&B manager. “Where we see the difference is with impulse items. The extra cookie, brownie, piece of fruit, smaller things, and candies are all down.”


Are You Being Served?
In response to the drop in discretionary spending and poor customer satisfaction with F&B, resorts are trying some new recipes for success.

Saddleback held the line on prices, and is offering more grab-and-go items and end-of-the-day discounts on leftovers (2-for-1 pizza, half-price baked goods). “A lot of kids wait right until 3:30 to get pizza,” Moore says.

Killington cut prices on some F&B items, including a 10 percent across the board cut at sister area Pico (“We’re trying to push Pico as a high value resort,” Harrison says), and started offering passholders 15 percent off F&B purchases at both resorts. “We’ve also become a lot more creative with our merchandising of impulse items,” Harrison says. “We set up display stands in front of our registers, put larger cookies in warming ovens, encourage our staff to push these items, and generally turn up our presentation. People buy with their eyes.”

Last winter, in response to the recession, Sunday River, Maine, began offering a few cut-rate items (PB&J sandwich for $1.99, burgers for $3.99, and drinks under $1). “People come in expecting expensive, poor food,” says Jim Largess, Sunday River F&B manager. “We’re trying to make food more affordable.” This winter, Sunday River introduced dining cards ($75 for a $100 card), and has kid’s menus in all its food courts (entrée, drink, dessert and toy).

At Whitefish, the emphasis has been on quality and delivery. The area reorganized seating and customer flow in its sitdown base restaurant, upped the quality of its offerings and improved staff training. “It’s been really successful,” Clap says. “We’ve served twice as many parties per day.” Although skier visits have remained flat, discretionary spending is way up. “It’s like last year never happened,” he says.

The turnaround coincides with the arrival of a new F&B director. “We were never overpriced, but our quality was so-so,” Clap says. “Now it’s exceptional. In general, our focus has been on quality and hiring the right people. We have the happiest employees we’ve ever had. More of them are eating here, which is one of the best barometers of success you can have.”

At Keystone, Colo., people purchasing lift tickets on Liftopia receive a $15 lunch voucher. “Bundling F&B with tickets allows resorts to drive sales in F&B, and also allows them to deliver really high value to customers,” Reece says.

As part of its Appetite for Life initiative, Vail is offering a $9.95 Lunch for Less (entrée, side and drink) every day at all five resorts, a prepaid card with a 20 percent added value ($200 for a $240 card), and it revamped its burger. Instead of frozen patties, Vail now uses fresh hamburg cooked to order and served on a local bakery bun with fresh greens and special sauce. Price varies by resort. “People want value, and value is quality,” says Beth Howard, VP of dining at Beaver Creek. “You can’t have one without the other.”

Quality is a major focus at many resorts. Resorts are offering more homemade soups, fresh baked goods, gluten-free items, more fruit and healthy choices, more variety and locally-grown food.

“The game has changed,” Largess says. “The days of frying a million burgers, wrapping them and sticking them out are way over. We’re focused on quality stuff, more local food, selling food with a story. We have a scallop that looks like a filet mignon that we buy right off the pier in Portland. People have responded to it. They’re willing to pay for it.”

“Many people mistake value with cheap,” Reece says. “That’s not the case. Value is not just discounting as much as possible. It’s more about giving a high value experience.”

In fact, often the most expensive venues at ski resorts will have the highest value scores, Belin says. “The more expensive, sit-down type of restaurants tend to have higher scores from a value standpoint than cafeterias and food courts,” he says.


No Cheap Eats Here
Aware of these findings, many resorts, despite the recession, are expanding their high-end dining options. Like its sister resort, Crested Butte, Colo., Okemo has begun offering mountain-top dining (five courses, $125 per person) reached by snowcat. “It’s available every Sunday evening,” Doyle says. “We can take 30 customers and it’s been sold out.”

Ditto for Sunday River’s new moonlit dinners at its mountaintop restaurant. “They’ve all been sold out,” Largess says. “People love it. The high-end stuff is absolutely selling.”

In addition to its high-end, on-mountain, wine dinner at Lookout Cabin, the Canyons, Utah, opened the exclusive Canyons Club this year, with two new dining facilities for members only.

“The important thing for ski resorts is to know who their customers are and what they want,” Belin says. “It can be very different at any given mountain. It puts a lot of pressure on resorts because when it comes to food and beverage, customers do have an alternative. They can bring their own.”