“We used to go out and say, ‘here are our rates,’ and groups would say, ‘let’s go,’” says Deb Kresnak, sales manager at Shanty Creek, Mich., where nearly half the area’s winter business and 60 percent of its summer business is groups. “Everything is individualized now. We’re traveling more, working harder, making more deals.”
Group demographics are also changing rapidly at many areas. “The biggest change we’ve noticed is more families,” Kresnak says. “Groups are not singles any more. There are a lot more kids and families coming with groups.”
“Some people come on a group trip just to tube…”
At Wintergreen, Va., where groups make up about half of its business, summer and winter, the story is similar. Groups are getting younger. “Since 9/11, we’ve seen fewer middle-aged group travelers, especially mid-week,” says Kelley Davidson, vice president for sales and marketing. “We’re getting larger numbers of youth, who have more disposable time and don’t have to drive, on a bus.”
Groups are also staying closer to home, which has had major implications for local day areas at the expense of destination resorts. The Summit at Snoqualmie, Wash., has benefited from the change. Most of its groups come from Seattle, an hour away, and business is up more than 40 percent over the last four years.
“Since 9/11, that kind of increase is pretty incredible,” says Jason Richards, group sales manager. “We attribute it to fewer people wanting to travel.”
Mt. La Crosse, Wisc., where 25 percent of its business is groups, also focuses its group marketing efforts more locally—mostly because its “destination” market has dried up. “Ten years ago most of our groups came from Chicago, which had a huge number of ski clubs,” says Darcie Breidel, marketing director. “That business tapered off as the clubs got smaller and bus groups were not as popular as they used to be. We switched our focus to concentrate on more local groups.”
So how do ski areas identify groups and then go after them? Following is a look at how three resorts go about it, with a peek at a couple of niche strategies.
Three Areas, Three Strategies
At Shanty Creek, “we do a little bit of everything,” Kresnak says. The marketing effort starts with winning repeat business. “Thank God for our faithful customers, our repeats,” Kresnak says. “We work hard to sign them up again before they even leave.”
Shanty Creek’s group sales staff of six is each assigned a market: one person has SMERFs (social, military, education, religious, fraternal); one has associations; one ski groups; one golf, and two corporate groups. Each belongs to and is active in organizations and groups within their sectors. “We all do a combination of word-of-mouth, direct mailings, sales calls, traveling, presentations,” Kresnak says.
Wintergreen has had good success working with travel and tour brokers. “We also work with churches, fraternal groups, family reunions, but we really have to hold their hands,” Davidson says. “Most of our business is from brokers. They do all the work. We stay close with them, assist with pricing, packaging, promotions, advertising.
“Like our social guests or nongroups, groups are waiting longer and longer to book a trip. People used to plan three or four weeks out. Now brokers tell us people are making decisions sometimes 24 to 48 hours prior to leaving.”
Wintergreen mails to previous groups going back several years, is active in industry associations and organizations, supports their fundraisers, advertises in their newsletters and on-line publications, sends broadcast e-mails when permitted and continually updates its business listings. “We have some staff whose main job is go through our business lists to make sure we have the right contact person,” Davidson says.
The area has also instituted special early- and after-hours group times in its rental shop, and offers groups that rent from the area free ski or ride lessons. To drive midweek group business, Wintergreen throws in free rentals as well as lessons. To attract a wider range of group clientele, the area has added more products, including tubing and an adventure center with bungie jumping, trampoline, climbing tower, skate park and more.
“Some people come on a group trip just to tube,” Davidson says. “Once they’re here, they can purchase other options.”
Like Shanty Creek, Snoqualmie’s group sales staff of four puts a major emphasis on gaining repeat business. But it focuses on fulfillment as the key driver. “We keep retention through the actual service we provide once groups arrive,” Richards says. “Marketing and solicitation have to come in the fall. By January, we decrease a lot of our proactive sales, and the staff concentrates on fulfillment and operations.”
Like other areas, Snoqualmie goes after new business through mailers, cold calls, networking, referrals and word-of-mouth.
Niche markets
There are a lot of niche groups and ways to bring them in. Success is a matter of identifying these special groups and providing them the facilities and/or services that they need.
For example, Mt. La Crosse has carved out a new niche from an old market: racing. The area has always been race-friendly, but two years ago it upped the ante by having its slopes homologated to hold USSA and FIS sanctioned races.
Breidel says La Crosse does not count the race groups as part of its overall group business, but the numbers the races bring in are substantial—60 to 150 racers plus another 200 to 300 or more friends, family and others. “We don’t treat them as groups,” Breidel says. “They all come separately, they all purchase tickets separately, get their own lodging.”
Despite the numbers, Breidel says La Crosse is still evaluating the value of racing groups to the area. “It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” she says. “The races are bringing in people, but they also take up a substantial amount of terrain. Some weekends when we’ve got a race here we have to cut back on other business that we would normally book. Our regular church and youth groups don’t tie up the hill. So it does have a downside to it.
“But we have good terrain here for racing. It fits well with our demographics. We enjoy the customers. They’re upbeat, nice to have around.”
Sunburst, Wisc., has stumbled onto a different niche—tubing groups. Since opening a tubing hill seven years ago, Sunburst’s tubing operation has grown to about 40 percent of its overall business. Tubing groups account for about 25 percent of that.
“The tubing groups just naturally evolved out of our ski groups,” says Steve Voss, general manager. “We get a lot of the same clientele crossing over to try tubing, as well as a lot of different people who have never skied or snowboarded before.” Today, Sunburst sends every group both its brochures—tubing and skiing/snowboarding.
Unlike ski/snowboard groups that receive a group discount, tubing groups pay the full tubing rate. “We haven’t placed a discount there because we haven’t needed to,” Voss says.
In fact, the only accommodation Sunburst makes to tubing groups is to reserve enough tubes oups provided they call ahead. Of its 450 tubes, Sunburst sets aside an average of 100 to 150 for groups.
In most cases, success with groups comes down to the same four things: identifying the interests and needs of the group, aligning the resort’s offering with those needs, communicating these benefits to groups, and providing as much service as necessary to keep the customers satisfied. These basic principles can keep a resort in the black, even in a tough market.
