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May 2013

Nick of Time

Winter arrived late in much of the country, but stayed late—and proved snow is always better late than never.

Written by Linda Goodspeed | 0 comment

Call it the “just in time” winter. After last year’s no-show winter, snowfall returned this year just in time for every major holiday, helping the U.S. ski industry to a solid coast-to-coast ski season.

“The snowfall and storms were very timely,” says Greg Sweetser, executive director of Ski Maine. “They came just in time to give us a strong Christmas vacation. We got more snow just before MLK, and another 30 inches just before all the February vacations.”

“Everybody got every holiday this winter—Christmas, MLK, February vacation,” says Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Association.

“We didn’t lose a single weekend or holiday,” adds Scott Brandi, president of Ski Areas of New York. “It was really something.”

The season was not a record breaker in snowfall or visits. Just consistent, a nice return to average. (Whisper number: 57 million.) But after last season’s debacle, a “return to average is welcome,” notes Jennifer Rudolph, communications director at Colorado Ski Country USA.


A Matter of Perception
When it comes to snowfall, timing is everything. “This year, we don’t have much more snow in inches than last year, which was considered a bad year,” says Cailley Chakeen, director of sales and media at Ski Utah. “This year is considered a much better year. Resorts are putting up some great numbers. The reason is perception. We had some great snowfall before the holidays. When snow comes just before the holidays, it’s perceived as great. It changes the perception for the whole season.”

Just ask Colorado. Poor snow before Christmas sent first-period visits through December 31 down 11.5 percent over last year. The state spent the rest of the season digging out from that perception.

“We learned a lot about perception last year,” says Tom Meyers, marketing manager at Wachusett, Mass. “We all struggled with the ‘no snow in the backyard’ syndrome last year. We actually had good coverage all season, but no one believed it.”

This winter, Wachusett came out of the gate determined to overcome that perception by reinforcing snow conditions at the mountain. Every Thursday, for 12 weeks, it aired a same-day commercial filmed outdoors at the resort. (See “Best/Worst Marketing,” page 37, for more.) “The campaign really helped a lot,” Meyers says.

So did Mother Nature, which pummeled the region with the fifth-snowiest winter on record. Snow in the backyard and on the mountain! Sweet!


Night and Day
“This season is night and day compared to last year,” says Dave Dekema, marketing director at Snowshoe, W.V. “It’s definitely our best season in the last five.” And next season already looks strong, with record early season pass sales.

Other eastern resorts reported equally upbeat results. Meyers says Wachusett will hit its 3-year average. By mid-March, Sunday River, Maine, was 20,000 visits ahead of last season YTD, its second best financial year on record. “We’ve had a very strong year,” says Darcy Morse, communications director. Statewide, Sweetser expected Maine to top 1.3 million skier days, a healthy number. Next door at Loon, N.H., marketing director Molly Mahar says a record was possible.

“It’s just what the doctor ordered,” adds Brandi, who estimated New York’s 50 resorts were running three to five percent ahead of budget. “We’re above our five-year average,” says Jane Eshbaugh, marketing manager at Holiday Valley, N.Y.

Chris Bates, general manager at Cataloochee, N.C., says this season, which ran from Halloween to April Fool’s Day, will be the second-best on record. And next year’s pass sales are already 20 percent ahead of last season.

Not everyone was so upbeat. The season was only “moderately good” at Liberty, Pa., which missed Christmas for the second year in a row. A strong March was helping make up the difference, says marketing director Anne Weimer.

Out west, the story was much the same. By the end of February, Colorado was still down 4.2 percent over the previous year, but hoping for a strong finish. “We had a big hole to climb out of,” Rudolph says. “But spring is looking very favorable.”

Utah had a good year, and in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, visits were up 7.4 percent over last year’s strong season. “We’re seeing some very good growth,” says John Gifford, president of the Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association.

In California, there were no record days, but cold temps and timely snow made for a good year. “We had snow in time for the holidays, and were able to do well enough,” Roberts says. “If there’s snow, they’ll come.” And spend money. Roberts says revenues and yields were up substantially. “People are not hunting down deals,” he says.

In the broad Midwest, “pretty much everybody had a good year,” says a spokesman. Crystal Mountain, Mich., was up 12 percent, while Shanty Creek, Mich., eclipsed its five-year average. “We had five out of six sunny Saturdays in January,” says Steve Kershner, director of snow­sports at Shanty Creek. “We found that’s a very good business model for skiing and snowboarding.”


Snowboarding and Other Trends
Snowboarding continues to level off. “It’s beyond flat, it’s dropped,” says Roberts in California. Others have noticed similar declines. “Snowboarding seems to be leveling off at about 20 percent [of visits],” says Bates at Cataloochee. “At one time, it was almost 40 percent.”

The good news is that there seems to be a lot of crossover. The parks are full, as skiers have joined riders there. “There has been a flattening of the snowboard curve,” Kershner says. “But not of park riders. There are a lot of twin tip and skiers in the parks. We had a St. Patrick’s Day park event, and it was exactly even between snowboarders and skiers.” Resorts say beginner parks were very popular, too.

There are other signs of snowboarding’s slowdown. At Holiday Valley, Eshbaugh says rental skis were up twice as much as rental boards. “Snowboarding is definitely not dying, but there seems to be less interest,” Eshbaugh says.

Other trends? Airbags are huge. In the Midwest, companies brought in airbags for weekend events at dozens of resorts. “It was a huge phenomenon,” says a Midwest spokesman.

Diversity within the sport continues to come primarily from overseas, particularly Asians of all types, and also guests from Australia and South America.

Wachusett, which calls itself the “UN of skiing,” has one of the best multicultural outreach programs, thanks to its weekend train and shuttle bus service from Boston to the resort.

Sunday River is seeking out diverse groups through its conference business and Snowshoe is targeting nearby military installations and vets and under-30s, an age group Dekema says is declining.

Weimer says Liberty, Pa., has also noticed a decline in attendance in some women specialty programs. “We did a focus group among past women participants to figure out what was going on,” she says. “It seems to be more an issue of time than disinterest.”

Many resorts reported that midweek business was also flat or down, a sign, perhaps, of an improving economy. “People seem to want to be at work more during the week,” Eshbaugh says.

“As an industry, we have to address how to get more capacity on peak days, or spread out the demand,” notes Sweetser at Ski Maine.

To that end, beginning in late January, Loon experimented with an advance purchase $54 ticket for Thursdays. “It helped drive some business for sure,” Mahar says.

In other trends, lessons were very strong. Resorts ran some great learn-to programs. Online advance ticket sales also continue to expand to more and more resorts. “It locks in sales and weatherproofs business a little bit,” Dekema says. “It enables us to create demand in softer periods.” You can’t expect snow to arrive just in time all the time, after all.