The resort of the future. The mountain for the new Millennials. What does it look like? How does it run?

If only we knew the answers to those questions. In time, though, we will. And the answers might come as a surprise to traditionalists. Because the answers may very well come from resort operators who join this world from the outside world. When it comes to reimagining the resort of the future, it’s easier for these outsiders to start with a clean slate.

Two resorts are great examples of this concept. At Blue Mountain Ski Area, PA., owner Barbara Green is moving the resort toward a new future using what she learned before her resort life, when she worked as a high-level CPA. And at Connecticut’s Powder Ridge, new owner Sean Hayes is taking what he’s learned from operating non-mountain adventure resorts and overlaying that experience onto the ski hill.

What both are seeing is that while tradition is great, thinking above the peak and beyond the trail might well be what will help a resort give future guests what they are craving. The overarching message is, it’s not just about the snow.

Using Capital Efficiently
For Green, who worked long hours as a CPA, successful business meant using all your capital. And so, when her first winter season wrapped in March and everyone just went on their way, she found herself thinking, “Wait. This is it?”

“I was losing all my key people, and not seeing them for 10 months,” she says. “That meant bringing them up to speed every year.”

To her, it was clear that a good resort will operate year round, and will offer all kinds of extras. But here was her CPA twist: it had to be done in a way that was affordable to the mountain not just in dollars, but in personal expenditure.

In other words: someone passionate about each added program had to spearhead that program.

And so she reached out to her community to find the people who were, and worked to partner with them. Now, Blue Mountain has a growing wedding business, mountain biking, disc golf, and more. Its newly-revamped restaurant, run by someone passionate about restaurants, is thriving.

“It really doesn’t work unless you have the people in place who want to do it,” she says. “For instance, look at our day camps now (which are doing quite well). I would not be able to do that. I mean: I’m just not passionate about day camps.”

Green is finding that as local folks partner with Blue in business ventures, and as even more folks visit for reasons other than skiing and riding, the area’s skiing and riding revenues are benefiting.

“Everyone is getting to know us a little better, and those who visit in the off seasons are becoming more inclined to come try us out in the winter as well,” she says.

The Resort As Activity Center
Powder Ridge was a community hill that did fine for years. But a few years back, it closed thanks to low-snow seasons. Now Hayes and his team are working at not just bringing it back, but growing it in ways locals may have never imagined.

What he is finding, he says, is folks want a place they can all stay at for long periods of time. That means creating more than just a ski/ride spot—something more like a sports/entertainment/activity center for all.

Hayes points out that in a way, this is easier for him than many other local hills. Since the mountain had shut down for several years, the local community had moved on from its hill-related lifestyle and done without it for some time. That means he and his team are forced to recreate the resort from the ground up and help customers create a new lifestyle focused on the area.

What he noticed first in studying the old Powder Ridge was a shocking (to him) stat: 80 percent of its first-time skiers never came back. “We had to change that,” he says. “As an outsider I found it unacceptable. So I had to look at, how do we change that?”

His answer is to give everyone in the family something to do. “If you give them all enough to do all day, everyone is happy,” he says. That’s why Powder Ridge is adding three levels of dining (cafeteria, tavern and fine dining), day rooms to rent (which are like slopeside condos without the bedrooms; a kind of mini-vacation home), a shopping center with lots of local craft/artisan shops to meander through, snow tubing and other on-mountain options—and of course, a quality ski and ride school.

“We were among the first to adopt terrain-based learning,” he says. “It’s been very, very successful already. We are north of 50 percent returning already, so we are getting there.”

The area has also introduced a program that guarantees you’ll be comfortable skiing or riding after three lessons. If you are not, you get three more lessons for free. The idea is to give people the confidence that they can and will become true skiers or riders. “We want to reverse the dropout trend,” he says. “If we can get 80 percent returning, we are creating four times the skiers for the entire industry.”

Hayes and his team did not pull this out of thin air. While they do operate urban adventure parks in nearby communities, the mountain was a new venture to them. So they went to the best source they could find to figure out what was needed: the locals.

“Every Tuesday night we went to a local tavern, hung out and let them tell us what they wanted,” Hayes says. “We call it our ‘evolution business plan,’ let the customer tell us what they want.”

That barstool research will lead Powder Ridge to add downhill mountain bike trails in the summer (there are none in Connecticut as of yet), and to create that place the whole family wants to hang out all day long, winter and summer.


Creating That “It” Place
Green, too, is working toward that goal, and expects her resort to become stronger and stronger year round. She sees her plan of bringing in community members as business partners as a key to the resort’s success. “I am open to anyone who comes in here and says, ‘I’d like to try something.’ By having people excited about a certain part taking over, we all win.”

Hayes looks forward to becoming that “something for everyone” spot, too. To that end, he plans to open every winter season on Black Friday. His vision: Guests can come, shop, eat, ski, ride, or just hang out. Long-term, he hopes to be seen as a central spot for the community to enjoy all kinds of recreation.

Both newcomers to the resort business agree that this kind of re-thinking is something all resorts should be doing. Says Green, “If you are not reinventing yourself to be a 12-month resort, I think you’re going to be in trouble.”