SIW attracts many key ski industry players—resort, supplier and retail—who attend presentations, workshops, panel discussions and the like. But the priorities are right: no serious stuff scheduled in the heart of the skiing day. This year it was all under glorious, cloudless skies. (O.K., it was a little rocky. “So you’re in the Rockies,” countered punster Klaus Obermeyer.)
This reviewer came away thoroughly stimulated by the range of ideas floated, and thoroughly confused by the attractive (but often conflicting) strategies advanced for our industry.
Among the featured speakers was Sergio Zyman, a Vail devotee, and earlier head of global marketing for Coca Cola. He related the colorful story of how Coke found itself with plummeting market share in the mid-70s, even as everyone professed to love the product. “Virtual consumption,” he called it. He likened Coke’s problem then to the ski industry’s flat growth problem today, and suggested there were solutions. “Skiing needs to reinvent its foundation for today’s customers, just as Coke did,” he said.
Another marketing speaker was Elizabeth Vanzura, marketing director for Volkswagen, who described a dramatic comeback achieved through positioning and focused advertising.
NSAA’s president, Michael Berry, took off from these marketing messages by updating the audience on NSAA’s developing plans for a promotional initiative. (See SAM Reports and Speak-out.) Both marketing speakers had emphasized that progress was impossible with decision-making by committee. Berry scrambled wittily to downplay the committee effort that had brought NSAA to where it was in its promotional program. He assured everyone the committee now just wanted to “get the hell out of the way” while their designated agency, San Francisco-based Leagas-Delaney, developed programs to go after the “lapsed skier/boarder” market, estimated at over 22 million strong.
There were other strong presentations, notably one by George Bell, CEO of Excite!, who described the staggering speed at which E-Commerce is changing the way the world does business. Bell, as a former head of The Skiing Company, was particularly sensitive to the interests of his audience, but cautioned that even as an industry totality, we are very small. As part of the total recreation industry, he seemed to say, we might just be visible on the radar screen, but the snowsports industry as a stand alone, well…
In addition to the featured speakers, there were several panel sessions, more than one focusing on the ski resort side of the snowsports industry.
One on the real estate boom at ski areas brought out some amazing numbers and some startling positions. Biggest shocker was Harry Frampton, one-time president of Vail Associates, who since that tenure has prospered mightily as a developer and real estate entrepreneur in the region. He volunteered that the phenomenal growth in recreational real estate sales in Eagle and Summit Counties was a societal thing that was not dependent on growth in skier population. In the context of a discussion on industry plans to grow the sport, he ventured that the region was doing just fine, thank you, and that one of the reasons for their success was that people like it as it is, without extra crowding.
Speakers from Intrawest and American Skiing Co. agreed we are in a phenomenal boom, centered on the boomer market, that exists outside the reality of a flat skier/boarder market.
Intrawest’s Michael Coyle suggested that the baby boomers are looking at second homes as a necessity, not as a luxury. ASC’s Gary Spearn saw a continuing demand for quality, year-round mountain experiences for families, saying, “Real estate is not just about condos, it’s about the social spaces that extend their visit.”
One of the focuses of the 1998 SIW was *Skiing Magazine*’s 50th Anniversary. The organizers celebrated with an awesome fireworks display on one evening. The following evening produced a celebratory, at times rowdy, banquet at which three of the magazine’s former leaders were inducted into their hall of fame. Merrill Hastings, the founder, was honored, but could not attend because of his wife’s health. Bob Parker, an early *Skiing* editor and legendary Vail marketer, accepted for Hastings. Brad Briggs, who ran the magazine after Ziff-Davis bought it in 1964, was the second honoree and Harry Kaiser, the featured inductee, who was publisher of the magazine under four successive corporate owners, was the third. His long tenure and resilience were warmly recalled by countless *Skiing* staffers.
