The week provided a sobering view of the ski industry and frankly acknowledged the industry’s doldrums. Many of the presentations therefore, were aimed at jump-starting a stalled sport.
NSAA members at the meeting unanimously expressed alarm at the dissolution of Times Mirror Conservation Council, whose demise was punctuated by the presence of Dr. David Rockland, former executive director of the Council, and TMM chairman Francis Pandolfi, who founded and championed the Council. The Council, and Rockland’s position, were victims of company-wide cuts.
NSAA members were particularly distressed by the closing of Rockland’s lobbying office and strongly expressed their desire to see TMM continue its annual Roper environmental survey, the National Environmental Forum.
George Bell, the recently named president of The Skiing Company, TMM’s ski and snowboard division, and Pandolfi both said that the Roper study will continue, most likely under the aegis of National Environmental Education and Training Foundation (Pandolfi is chairman of NEETF). In addition, Bell said, TMM is continuing its Gold and Silver Eagle award program for environmental excellence.
Rockland presented the results of this year’s survey, which was subtitled, “Look- ing Back, Moving Forward.” The country as a whole continues to become more thoughtful on environmental matters, he said; reexamining the effects of some laws, but anxious to see additional action in certain areas. There seems to be greater satisfaction with environmental action to date; fewer people call themselves active environmentalists and more people feel we’ve done enough to protect the environment—though a plurality still says there’s room for conservation. Americans show less confidence in politicians and a willingness to rely on volunteerism.
There’s also a greater concern for the costs of environmental protection, especially the protection of endangered species. This topic was addressed in depth by George Frampton, Interior Department assistant secretary for Fish, Parks and Wildlife. He described his department’s attempt to shift from a “regulatory paradigm” to a “management paradigm,” in which industry and government develop a long-term use plan that would eliminate the need for project-by-project regulation. The goal: to agree on a broad plan to protect species and the environment generally. In theory, this frees businesses to plan their futures and government agencies to avoid the costs of regulating business. “This is the strategy for habitat and riparian protection, without regulation,” Frampton said.
The NSAA board of directors meeting at Beaver Creek breezed through a long slate of issues. One hot topic: helmets. While some helmet vendors are declaring skiing a helmet sport, the NSAA believes helmet use should be left up to individual skiers. “Nobody takes issue with the notion that helmets are appropriate for some individuals,” said Michal Berry, president of NSAA. “But areas don’t want to make this mandatory headgear—there’s been no discussion of that.”
Following up on the National Ski Patrol’s expressed desire to play lead dog in a long-term campaign to reduce the skier accident rate, NSAA formed a task force with NSP to pursue this effort. Berry noted that the injury rate has been stuck at 2.5 per 1,000 visits for several years, and both organizations would like to see the rate decline still further.
Government issues remain urgent. The lease-fee bill lobbying and related maneuvering continues, as the original lease-fee bill has been tied up in the budget wrangling in Washington. A second, separate bill, with language identical to the original, has been introduced as a means of circumventing the budget logjam.
“Everyone’s very hopeful that it’s going to be passed in one of the two tracks; we should know by the first of the year,” Berry said. Either of the current fee bills would simplify the fee calculations and be revenue-neutral. If neither bill gets enacted, a Forest Service administrative solution kicks in on January 1, an option that is not favored by NSAA.
The lease-fee issue has pushed privatization, one of the Republican hot buttons, to the back burner, Berry added. The committee voted to take no position on privatization. “Our goal is to keep our members from making knee-jerk reactions one way or the other,” said Berry.
Faced with the uncertainties of the issue, the committee voted to survey the 137 NSAA members on public lands and conduct additional research to under- stand the full implications of privatization.
Berry said that while privatization might be a good solution for some members, it could cause problems for others. A large leaseholder facing contentious local pol- itics might want to retain the Forest Ser- vice in its role as a buffer between the area and local activists. One possibility is for public lands to remain largely intact, but with the formulation of a less cumbersome land-swap program to facilitate privatizing selected parcels or areas.
In the week’s best marketing presentation, Bob Dorf, of the former Dorf and Stanton PR agency that once represented SIA programs, made a convincing case for the effectiveness and the ease of developing extensive one-to-one marketing efforts. The goal: sell as many different products as possible to each customer, starting with your best customers. This means first differentiating your customers, Dorf said, then understanding what they spend currently—and how much more they could spend if you tailor your pitch to them. The key to gaining a greater “share of customer” is conducting an ongoing, interactive dialogue, and then using the information gained to match customers to existing products or to develop new products for them. “Customization is the sincerest form of collaboration,” Dorf concluded.
