Mobile apps: Everyone knows they are the way of the future. If you don’t have an app already, chances are you will soon, because mobile browsing will overtake desktop browsing by 2013. That’s significant; it means resorts need a mobile site, at a minimum. But an app makes it even easier for guests to access your information and to communicate with friends, and that’s the real value.

Currently, Vail Resorts’ EpicMix 2.0 is setting the industry standard. It provides general resort information, personal usage/accomplishments tracking, message and photo sharing, and makes it possible for the resort to provide timely, location-based messages. EpicMix integrates e-commerce options and can keep a guest in touch with other friends and family on the mountain. In all that, EpicMix offers a level of information and connectivity unthinkable just a few years ago.

Now, it has gone mainstream. Nearly 100,000 guests activated their EpicMix accounts last season, which equates to a 15 percent adoption rate. That led to 275,000 social posts on Facebook and Twitter. By mid-December 2011, this season’s posts had already exceeded those for all of last year.

Not every resort has the resources to build an app and integrated website as Vail Resorts has. But it’s possible for most resorts to offer a range of services and connectivity, without breaking the bank. And many are doing just that.

Apps can provide a range of interaction and connectivity. The basic level is to take a resort’s web content and make it available on mobile devices, in one location and with ease of use and navigation. Snow reports, web cams, news and events, maps and directions, photo sharing—all are relatively simple to put into an app.

Beyond that are the social media elements, making it easy for guests to share their experience via Facebook, Twitter, and photo-sharing sites. The next level of personalization is the “blow your mind” sorts of things, as RTP senior VP Michael McDermott calls them: GPS mapping and you-are-here information, so that guests can easily see where they are and where they want to go, as well as performance tracking. And the final level is personal messaging with guests based on their location on the mountain and other factors, such as time of day, to promote and facilitate e-commerce via phone.

But how do you get one of those fancy apps without a large budget and computer engineer on staff? Most resorts have much of the basic content that an app can serve to customers already—web cams, snow reports, photo sharing, news and promotions. Resorts with good cellular coverage—and there are many that don’t have that—can add on-mountain features.

Steve Pope, of Epop Studio, points out that he and other web developers can create custom apps by incorporating other, third-party apps into one. “You can do some of the EpicMix stuff with third-party apps,” he says. You don’t have to recreate the wheel, in other words.

RTP has recently introduced what it calls the Liveinfo platform, a package of information-sharing tools that resorts can use to assemble their own iPhone and Android apps. The apps can give guests a way to easily share photos and updates with friends via social media, track their performance with GPS, and get up-to-the-second weather and information feeds, all within one app. “This way, guests don’t have to open and close the Twitter app, the camera, etc.,” says McDermott. “The app is designed to present the information in a manner that’s suited to the phone.”

And each Liveinfo app can be customized so that it is unique. ”The app has to look and feel like your brand, not a template,” McDermott says, to maintain a resort’s relationship with its guests.

LiveInfo can also be upgraded to the RTP LivePass platform, which adds ticketing, point-of-sale, e-commerce, mobile commerce and third-party channel ticket management.

The information available for app use is expanding, too. For example, more and more ski areas are doing Google maps of their resorts, and you can pull that information into an app. Google is starting to do “street views” of resorts such as Disney; if you can get Google to come out and do slope-level mapping—which Google does for free—you then can use that in an app. Resorts can also map vertical feet, distances, and key features.


Low Cost, Big Return
Surprisingly, the price of setting up an app, even a fully-featured one, is relatively insignificant.

How cheap? Pope says a basic app can be done for as little as $2,500, assuming a resort has the content in a format that’s mobile-friendly. He points to Perfect North Slopes, Ind., as an example. At Perfect North, he says, “We already had the cams, the audio snow report, etc., so that was easy, and that brings down the cost. If not, we have to build that content first.”

Then there are additional costs for different platforms. Do you want a unique iPad version? That adds cost. So does an Android version. “There are seven different Android screen sizes; you have to do a different version for each, or do a version that sort of works on all sizes,” Pope says.

McDermott says RTP offers two pricing approaches: outright purchase of a resort-specific app for $20,000 (including iOS and Android versions), or a three-year subscription app service for $9,500 a year. The subscription approach includes the initial setup and any updates that come along over the contract period. Given the speed of evolution in mobile, updates could be substantial.

Another cost comes from the staffing it takes to keep the content fresh, just as it does for a website. Pope notes that marketing materials are easy to create, but resorts must be diligent about keeping them updated. Apps users are always looking for the latest information and conditions; if those aren’t available, they may well stop using the app.


But It’s Worth It
With an app, even smaller areas can engage its customers more. The Perfect North app offers live cams, an audio snow report, news and events, some specials, a trail map, and point-to-point directions. Indianhead’s app, also designed by Pope, has similar elements. Both apps have social feeds: you can pull up their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, etc. Users of the Perfect app have the ability to upload photos; the resort hosts a photo album, and guests post to that. It will soon be available in an Android version, and incorporate an interactive map.

The Perfect app has been out for two full seasons. It’s had 7,500 downloads, 5,000 in the first year. “We’re impressed with those numbers,” Pope says. Indianhead has had about 2,500 downloads.

Thanks to Google analytics stats, it’s possible to track usage the same as for a website. And the numbers are significant. Perfect North has a mobile site, and that’s the portal for about 20 percent of all visitors. And about half of those mobile visits, about 10 to 12 percent of all visits, come via the app. Even better, research shows that visitors spend twice as much time on the app as on the website.

A mobile app can certainly justify itself financially, even if it’s not possible to precisely define the ROI of all the components. Social media has become a key means of building word of mouth, which is still a very powerful—if not the most powerful—form of marketing there is.

Greater customer engagement, increased share of mind—that’s a lot of bang for a little buck.