Which, in a sense, he had. We were a crew of horribly jet-lagged journalists who had been travelling (in the case of those who flew in from California) for as much as 36 hours. Every cell in every wrung-out body was screaming for sleep.
“Now we go skiing!” Hjalmar exclaimed, clapping his hands like an Ibsenesque schoolmaster. We were bussed to a cross country center somewhere between Oslo and Lillehammer, then herded around hilly trails by our host, who had not been without sleep for 36 hours. Hjalmar was a wonder, skating and double-poling so fast in his patriotic skintight suit that he looked like a blue and yellow blur.
After that, everything became a blur. Like divers plumbing new depths, we explored hallucinogenic levels of fatigue as we toured an endless array of ski museums, equipment factories, wax factories, sport centers, VIP homes, hotels, national monuments. By day four, we collectively resembled that face in Munch’s “The Scream.” On day six (or was it seven?) the trip culminated in a “fun” race, during which we were forced to ski over a series of bizarre obstacles, downing glass after glass of aqavit. Beavis and Butthead would have loved it.
Several years later I went on another, very different trip—this one orchestrated by the Swiss National Tourist Office. After flying to Zurich (alone, not part of a group) I rented a car and drove to Villars, then checked into one of the town’s many hotels, where a room had been reserved. Waiting for me was a fruit basket and a note from the town’s tourist office director: “Get some rest, then let me know if you need anything.” I slept off jet lag for a day or so, then met with the director, who gave me a mountain guide for the morning. The guide showed me around Villars’ lift-served skiing for half a day and cut me loose.
After that, I was left delightfully alone to explore Villars on my own. Inevitably there’s some time wasted through the trial-and-error approach to travel writing, and I burned up a few hours on dead ends and back alleys. But I also made some worthwhile discoveries, and they felt like discoveries. Wandering around off-piste, for example, I got lost and then found a huge, above-timberline bowl on the back side of a mountain called la petite Chamoiserre. It was mine alone, steep and filled with spring corn, and it remains in memory as one of the finest ski experiences I’ve had. Another day’s rambling turned up an ancient hunting lodge that had been transformed into a high mountain inn accessible only on skis. Later in the week, a group of boarding school kids from L’Ecole du Beau Soleil became impromptu guides for a real insider’s tour of Villars. After two hours with them, I knew the town’s best patisserie, its finest disco, and—hot that year—the best paragliding operation.
Those two trips—Norwegian and Swiss—were as different as lutefiske and schnapps. After a decade, the feel of both remains vivid. The first was like being in a straightjacket. The second felt like dancing.
My purpose here is not to skewer the Scandinavians, who made what is really a very common mistake. But the different approaches to selling their product adopted by the Norwegians and Swiss offer a valuable lesson for marketing and p.r. decision makers in the North American ski industry.
Our hosts on the first trip fell into a seductive trap. This was back in the early 80s, when little Lillehammer’s Olympic pretensions were still the stuff of midnight-sun dreams and Norway was starved for international tourism dollars. They cast an envious eye on European Alpine nations, which derived major portions of their gross national product from tourism, and wanted to carve themselves a bigger slice of the that pie—quickly. As a result, they made the mistake of trying to force-feed so much into a single campaign that their tour (which was one component of that campaign) felt like gastric lavage.
The Swiss, on the other had, being old hands at the tourism game, adopted a laissez-faire, less-is-more approach that was much more effective. With a bit of rest and freedom to roam, I was able really to explore Villars, and only real exploration produces real discoveries. The sense of freedom and adventure produced by that Swiss trip suffused the reports which found their way into the pages of American magazines.
It’s easy to distill a few key guidelines from all this:
- Avoid cattle-car fams and treat your media guests like individuals. Their appreciation will show in copy and broadcasts.
- Avoid Eichmanesque itineraries. Media folk are not empty vessels that only need to be filled until they overflow. They appreciate—and need—experiences that are new, exciting, unique. Stress novelty and quality rather than quantity.
- Recognize that media people are adult, functional humans with five working senses and healthy levels of self-esteem. They don’t really need “fun races”, karaoke fests, drinkathons, etc. to fulfill their mission, nor, generally, do they appreciate being subjected to kindergartenesque rituals.
- Fill their needs rather than your own. There’s a specific question behind every assignment. What’s Squaw’s new ski school doing? How’s the extreme skiing in Summit County? Is Killington getting too big? How’s Hunter’s computerized snowmaking? The better you help the media seeker fulfill his or her quest, the better you’ll gain exposure for your resort.
