Vail Battles an Ugly Perception
A byproduct of the outrageous arson Vail suffered is the bad press it received, centered around a perception—justified or not—of corporate insensitivity. Ironic because, from the start, Vail almost wrote the book on how to be a responsible company town. And no one has worked harder on community relations than CEO Andy Daly. It’s doubly ironic that the company’s image in the Valley has improved because of the eco-terrorism. The attack made all Valley residents feel they, as much as the company, were victims.
GLM™ . . . GSS™ . . . Shorties™ . . . Now It’s Your Turn™ . . . Perfect Turn™
Welcome to the wonderful world of branding. Now, you might think GLM is a bit long in the tooth to be trademarked. After all, the Graduated Length Method of teaching came on the scene back in the 1960s. And a headline in the October issue of Mountain Sports & Living—”GLM bounces back”—shows it is still around.
But wait! GLM with a ™ stands for Guaranteed Learning Method™, which is part of the “Now It’s Your Turn™” campaign launched by Mountains of Distinction (MOD). But then again, is it? American Skiing Company (ASC), which promotes its Perfect Turn™ teaching methodology, says they established prior use of Guaranteed Learning Method™, or GLM™, and trademarked it themselves. According to ASC’s Skip King, ownership of the disputed trademark has yet to be settled.
To clarify our headline, GSS™ stands for Graduated Sidecut System,™ a teaching system from Elan. We don’t know (and frankly don’t really care) if it has been trademarked. As for Shorties™, they are the new short skis (as opposed to the shorter shaped skis) that are a cross between in-line skates, snowboards and skis. The entire GLM™ initiative “is leveraged on the new short skis, or Shorties™. (In case you’ve forgotten, before being trademarked, “shorties” for 30 years or more were simply short skis.)
Did anybody stop to think how all this plays with the poor consumer? That at a time when we are all trying to lure (or lure back) the winter sports enthusiast, we may be confusing the hell out of them. And that all this proprietary branding on how we inflict our sport on them is Boring Stuff™ (BS™).
On the other hand, the widespread emphasis on friendly, hassle-free “Discover Centers” for beginners is right on target. Four of ASC’s resorts, all in the East, will open such dedicated centers this season; their other five resorts will have parts of the program but not the whole enchilada. Yet.
Jay Peak Finds Expansion Dollars
As recently as October 1, Bill Stenger, president of Jay Peak, Vt., was saying, “We are searching for capital. The biggest problem our industry has is the availability of willing capital.”
“Ask and ye shall receive,” the good book says, so, lo and behold, three weeks later, Stenger was announcing a $4 million winter facilities expansion program and effusively thanking Governor Dean and the Vermont Economic Development Authority that approved a $2.5 million low-interest Industrial Revenue Bond program. The money will enable a 7,700-ft. detachable quad (longest in the East) and expanded snowmaking, trails and glades. In a related move, the towns of Jay and Jay Peak got a $750K community development loan from another agency. Work begins in April.
In the meantime, Stenger still has an unfulfilled wish list that includes items he already has approvals on, like expanding the 48-room hotel to 225 rooms, 900 additional townhouses and a 27-hole golf course. No one ever accused Bill of thinking small.
Impacts of a Low Loonie
Canadian currency dropped to all-time lows last summer, just as ski areas were locking in their price structures for this season; it changed the marketing dynamics and bottom lines of ski resorts on both sides of the border.
The “loonie” (nicknamed for the loon featured on the Canadian one-dollar coin) bottomed out at about .63 cents U.S.—down from about .78 cents a year ago.
Over the past few seasons, several U.S. resorts lured Canadians over the border by accepting their money at par. But this season, some resorts are backing off the deep discounts. Vermont’s Smugglers’ Notch, for example, happily continues Canadian currency discounts for packages during slack months, but its lift-ticket windows will no longer accept the loonie at par. A little farther north in Vermont, roughly one-half of Jay Peak’s customers are Canadian and the area still takes Canadian money at par at ticket windows. Cash registers at Jay have two separate draws, so skiers who pay in loonies get Canadian change. For packages, Jay prints a second set of brochures with prices in Canadian rates.
Meanwhile, the low dollar is boosting Canada’s attractiveness as a destination for American tourists and keeping Canadians and their dollars at home. In the Laurentians, value-seeking U.S. customers have helped fill every room in sight in high ski season. Whistler/Blackcomb’s bookings were well up. Its $57 one-day lift ticket trims down to about $38 in greenbacks, $2 less than it cost Americans last year. That can look very attractive next to Vail prices of up to $61. The flip side is that costs for Canadian areas to market south of the border can be punishingly high.
—Reporting by Ron Rudolph
Olympic Bookkeeping
It isn’t cheap to host the Olympics. Recently, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) unveiled its proposed $1.4 billion budget for the 2002 Winter Games. After ten months of deliberation, the committee has determined it will need over $800 million for operations and venue development, which will include improvement to host resorts Deer Valley, Park City and Snowbasin. Another $600 million will be needed to cover information services, “distributables,” a Legacy Fund and expenses already incurred. Although this budget is some $200 million above previous estimates, SLOC president and CEO Frank Joklik says, “the estimated expenditures contain no fat or redundancies.”
SLOC continues to promise that Utah taxpayers will not foot the bill for the games, thanks to broadcast rights, licensed products and tickets. On top of that, some $700 million is hoped to come from sponsorships. The budget must now be approved by the IOC, Utah’s governor, the Salt Lake mayor and the SLOC trustees.
—Reporting by Cheryl Fox
An International Back Door
The headline on the release was refreshingly modest: “New Doorway to America Opens For British Skiers.” No gateway, just a door. And the route did not resonate, either: Cardiff in Wales to Bangor, Maine. (Bangor to Bangor would have been cool but the one in Wales doesn’t sport an international airport.)
The route was set up by American Skiing Co. with a successful British tour operator, SkiersWorld (35,000 Brit skiers on transatlantic ski vacations over the past five years). Packages, which start in March, feature skiing at Sunday River and Sugarloaf in Maine, and Attitash Bear Peak, N.H.
Stirrings in Stowe
A line in The Stowe Reporter was something of a shocker: “To remain viable, smaller ski areas, including Stowe, are finding niche markets and intentionally giving up segments of the skiing population.” How the mighty seem to have fallen! Stowe, once the undisputed King of the East, has languished for what seems like an eternity under the parsimonious stewardship of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, chairman of insurance mega-giant, AIG, which owns the ski resort.
Relief may be in sight, however. Stowe’s president, Hank Lunde, has announced AIG would loosen up $8 million to build an eight-mile snowmaking pipeline from the Waterbury Reservoir to the ski slopes—an essential piece in the resort’s expansion plans. On the resort’s wish list is a golf course and ski village with all the condo and hotel trappings. Also, a long overdue new base lodge and an upscale private club at the base of Big Spruce. Almost everyone agrees this sort of upgrading is essential if Stowe is to remain competitive into the next century. All it takes is for Hank to supply Hank with the funds.
