SAM Magazine—Denver, Feb. 19, 2014—Buffeted by the weather, destination lodging occupancy in the East and West was up 4.7 percent for the November-January period compared to a year ago, according to research firm DestiMetrics. With 85 percent of visits either completed or on the books, lodging properties surveyed by DestiMetrics appear ...

SAM Magazine—South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Feb. 18, 2014—Heavenly Mountain Resort has formally objected to the U.S. Forest Service's 15-year land management plan for Lake Tahoe. In a letter, the resort said that the Forest Service plan would limit future expansion of the four resorts in the Tahoe Basin to just 200 acres in total and ign...

SAM Magazine--Hillsdale, N.Y., February 13, 2014--Catamount announced a 10-year master plan that includes a luxury ski in/ski out condominium complex called The Berkshire Mountain Club. The 66 fully furnished suites will have full kitchens and be available in studio, 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom unit configurations with amenities, such as a restaurant/loun...

SAM Magazine--Stowe, Vt., February 13, 2014--Spruce Peak Realty, LLC and Stowe Mountain Lodge, LLC, affiliates of Stowe Mountain Resort, along with a group of owners of 40 condominium units at Stowe Mountain Lodge, announced that they have reached an agreement in principle as to the terms of a settlement resolving a putative class action lawsuit al...

SAM Magazine--Petite-Riviere-Saint-Francois, February 12, 2014--Employees at Le Massif de Charlevoix voted yesterday for the right to strike. Management has been in negotiations with the union, which only includes mountain employees and not hotel or train employees, but were unable to come to an agreement. In the meantime, the resort said that it w...

SAM Magazine—Dixville Notch, N.H., Feb. 12, 2014—The owners of the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel and the Balsams Wilderness Ski Area have engaged American Skiing Company founder Les Otten to help redevelop the hotel and resort, which have been closed for the past three years. Otten, founder and former president of the American Skiing Co...

SAM Magazine—Sochi, Russia, Feb. 8, 2014—Acting on an idea first promoted by SAM five years ago, NBC Olympics, in partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee and national governing bodies including the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), has created the Olympic Gold Map to help newcomers take up Olympic sports and existing partic...

SAM Magazine—Woodbury Conn., Feb. 7, 2014—After years of circling around the conversion question, resorts across North America are deploying new and innovative approaches to the learning experience. Novel programs aimed at increasing trial and conversion are seeing big success at several resorts, and were all the rage at the NSAA East a...

SAM Magazine—Martinsville, N.J., Feb. 4, 2014—As the wintersport season nears its midpoint, several sources are weighing in with their projections for the season. RRC estimates resort visit totals will range between 51 and 53 million, depending on weather and other factors over the season’s second half, while destination lodging v...

SAM Magazine--Denver, Colo., January 31, 2014-- Intrawest Resorts Holdings, Inc., which counts Winter Park, Stratton, Steamboat, Mont Tremblant, Blue Mountain and Snowshoe among its holdings, announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 15,625,000 shares of its common stock at $12 per share yesterday. The Company priced 3,125,000 shares ...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Jan. 30, 2014—Bolstered by strong retail sales this season, the annual Snowsports Industries America (SIA) Snow Show kicked off this morning with a "Sendoff to Sochi" opening ceremony. The event showcased the various official uniforms of the U.S. alpine, freestyle, snowboard, and freeskiing teams. With 94 ...

SAM Magazine—Eden, Utah, Jan. 24, 2014—Another local's area is getting a new lease on life: Skyline Mountain Base, an investment group comprised of local and European investors, has acquired the Wolf Mountain ski resort here from America First Credit Union. No terms of the deal were disclosed. Wolf Mountain fell into bankruptcy i...

SAM Magazine--West Dover, Vt., January 24, 2014--A 120-million-gallon water storage pond for snowmaking and a new 36,000-square-foot base lodge for guest services are two of the projects Mount Snow will fund through EB-5, an immigrant investor program. The projects, newly approved under the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center, total $52 million in investm...

SAM Magazine—Aspen, Colo., Jan. 23, 2014—Aspen Skiing Company (ASC) and ESPN have reached an agreement that will have the X Games calling Aspen/Snowmass its home until 2019. Now in its 13th year, ESPN chose to continue its long-term partnership with ASC, already the longest-tenured X Games host. And by 2019, Aspen/Snowmass will have hos...

SAM Magazine—Denver, Jan. 16, 2014—Favorable snowfall in December in most mountain regions in the U.S. helped boost lodging occupancy and revenues for the month, according to DestiMetrics (formerly the Mountain Travel Research Program, aka MTRiP). The upward trend in both occupancy and revenue is carrying into the remainder of the seaso...