It’s the fundamental question every resort and industry innovator has been asking: How do we get the non-skier/rider to not just show up and give it a try, but embrace the meaning of “I am a skier/rider?” How do we lead them to the mountain, and then send them home thirsty for more?

New skier and rider numbers have been in decline for a good long time, so if you’ve not been considering how to reverse this trend, you’re not in this industry. This past winter, two eastern resorts approached the learn-to challenge in a new way. For one, the results point to a huge success, a waiting list of newbies for the next season, and some impressive stats. For another, the vision of “how” ticked in a new direction, but results lagged.

Is either the seedling of a solution? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: both resorts learned more about what makes newbies show up, and more importantly, what makes them eventually slap that bumper sticker on their 4X4 that says, “LUV2SKI!”

Smooth Work At Ragged
We start at Ragged Mountain Resort in Danbury, N.H., 90 minutes from Boston, but far enough north to be a true mountain escape. Ragged is perfectly situated, one might say, to welcome first-timers. And yet, management watched and worried as its first-timer conversion rate remained flat.

“I decided I was not going to wait for everyone else to grow skiers so we can get our market share,” recalls Ragged president Ryan Schramm. “We are going to grow it on our own.”

A former PSIA instructor, Schramm sat down with his staff, many also current or former instructors, and brainstormed the issue. “We realized as a group that we we’re not doing a good job in this industry converting people [into repeat skiers and riders].”

Why? Long-time Ragged staffer and former instructor Bebe Woods, who at age 90 had seen a lot in the ski world, recalled that when she was young, skiing was a community event—affordable (and often free) to learn, and easy for a family to do. There were few barriers to entry into the sport, and that helped people to embrace it over time.

The solution, the team realized, was simple and yet complex: remove the barriers.

Going Out On A Limb
Thus was born the Bebe Wood Learn to Ski Program: free beginner lessons. All season long, seven days a week, anyone—anyone—could show up between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. for a free two-hour group lesson, using spiffy new Rossignol rental equipment. Should they return two more times and finish a total of three group lessons, Ragged offered two big incentives: a rock-bottom price on a season pass for the remainder of this season ($69), and also a wildly affordable gear deal from Rossignol ($299 for a $1,000 adult package, less for a junior).

But that’s not all. Other rewards for completing the three lessons included dirt-cheap follow up lessons for the rest of the season ($29 each), a “graduate pass” deal for next season ($199), discounts for friends who had brought the beginners to Ragged, and more.

The risk was huge. First, Ragged would have to staff those lessons daily, without an income flow to support it. Second, they’d have to be open and aware of “abuse,” such as families and individuals pretending to need the lesson to get to the low-cost pass. In the short term, the program would not be a revenue generator. But, done right, Schramm and his team believe it could, a few years in, pay off in a big way.

The response was remarkable. By season’s end, Ragged booked and taught 2,500 lessons. Of those, 66 percent finished all three, and a whopping 50 percent were converted to season passholders. Ragged has no stats on how many slapped bumper stickers proclaiming their love for the sport on their cars, but they do know this: new skiers and riders by the hundreds were funneled into the market. With a waiting list in place already for the next season, Ragged feels it’s onto something good.

Scrhamm attributes the program’s success to removing what they see as the three largest barriers to someone embracing the ski/ride life: the ability to take frequent lessons and improve; equipment cost; and the price of skiing in general, which can give first-timers sticker shock.

Investment In The Future
The three-lesson plan allows individuals to progress just that way: individually. Should you catch on quickly, you move into a more advanced group. Should you need more time, that’s exactly what you get. And three two-hour lessons allow instructors the time to do something crucial for building lifelong skiers: familiarize newcomers with the culture of skiing. From etiquette and rules on the slopes, to talking about the fun of après, instructors focused on helping newbies experience full immersion into mountain sports life.

The equipment deal was the next key. It was made possible by a partnership with Rossignol, who also supplied all the rental equipment to Ragged at no cost—something Schramm admits made the program possible in the first place. Being able to hand “graduates” a gift card that gets them a quality, full ski or snowboard gear package for $299 for adults or $199 for juniors made owning gear more accessible. Owning your own equipment, of course, is a huge emotional step toward being part of the ski and ride world.

So why were the lessons free? Did that decrease their perceived value? Schramm sees it is an investment in the future of his mountain and the industry as a whole. “By year three or four, if we see 500 new passes each year that did not exist before, we’re going to see a great success,” he says.

He points to the emotional connection most skiers have to their first mountain (he still goes back to ski his in Pennsylvania yearly), and says that will bring Ragged sustained growth as the years go on. “We’re not necessarily giving it away,” he says. “We’re just leading them to it.”

Resort spokesman Ben Hall agrees, saying the three-time visit, the exposure to the culture and the access to making it a part of your life at a decent price add up. “It’s about the skiing and riding, yes. But it’s also about having a pizza after; going to après and hearing some music. Doing it all,” he says. “We want people at the end of this to say, ‘I’m a skier now.’ And they are.”

While the resort may have to wait a few years to see meaningful bumps in revenue from the program, managers observed some immediate benefits. First, instructors, guaranteed full lessons each day, were exuberant. Many of them had graduates take regular privates with them, the true gold standard of instructing.

Schramm plans to continue the program as long as it’s successful. With a waiting list already for next season, he expects it to continue to succeed, and hopes, in time, to see Ragged’s market share—and the market of all—expand.

Discover Zone
Like Ragged, the folks at Jiminy Peak, Mass., Cranmore, N.H., and Bromley, Vt.—all operated by The Fairbank Group—gathered last fall to ponder how to better serve their newbies. Having noted that their first-time skier and rider visits were not down as much as they perceived (they were actually up a nudge at Bromley), their marketing, snow sports and operations staff met to study what was going on, ponder what the market wanted, make tweaks, and come up with something new.

A significant factor in their deliberations was the staggering number of first-timers—53 percent—who were showing up, buying a lift ticket and rental equipment, but opting not to take a lesson. According to Sherrie Bradway, Jiminy Peak director of snowsports, “We realized what we were selling [traditional lessons] was not what our customers wanted,” she says.

As a result, the new “Discover Zone” was created. This dedicated beginner area features a series of stations, each with a Terrain Based Learning (TBL) element. On weekends and holiday periods, each resort planned to staff the Discover Zone with coaches at each of the stations, to give tips and advice to those newcomers who shunned the lesson program. Essentially, they were providing a free lesson in a free-form kind of way.

The Zone’s goal was, in a way, to split the difference. By allowing newbies the freedom (and cost savings) of heading out on their own, but directing them to a place where coaches could help them gain confidence and progress, they could, in theory, improve the first-timer experience.

Mixed Results
“We saw people in [the Discover Zone], but we did not get a lot of interaction with the instructors,” says Bradway. Besides, she adds, “We still feel taking lessons is the best way to learn, so promotion was tricky.”

To avoid discouraging those willing to pay for a first-time lesson, advertising support for the program was rather quiet. Information on the areas’ websites, stickers on rental gear, flags leading folks to the Zone, and customer service staff guiding newbies toward it comprised the bulk of the promotion.

The areas also struggled to staff their Zones. On extra busy days, such as President’s weekend, instructors were pulled from the Zone to conduct paid lessons, leaving the area without coaches—and newbies without guidance.

However, the group feels it’s onto something. This off-season, they’ll study how to better promote and staff it, how to guide first-timers to the Zones, and then how to better serve them when they are there.

The takeaway? “It’s important that we stay focused on this segment of the market,” Bradway says. With such a large number of first-timers coming to the mountains and not getting lessons, something must be done. “We need to figure out the staffing and then figure out how to get those [newbies] in front of them.”

Regardless the level of success and future results, Ragged and The Fairbank Group went out on a limb to increase trial and retention. Other resorts are conducting similar experiments, all with the same common goal— to get more people on skis and boards. A passive approach yields nothing, and experimentation is an active science. We need to continue to try, and share what we’ve learned.