Blaming ski instruction for customer ills has long been popular chatter at ski industry cocktail parties. You want to know why the sport’s dropout rate is high or why people don’t ski enough or don’t take enough lessons? “It’s because ski schools don’t supply the right experience.”
If ski schools aren’t meeting skier needs, who’s to blame?
“Don’t look at me,” winks the area operator. “It’s PSIA. They put all the wrong ideas into the minds of my ski school director and instructors.”
For sheer buck-passing and cynicism, no aspect of ski area operations today can surpass management’s treatment of ski schools. This is hard to understand, because ski schools have the most intimate, prolonged contact with the customers.
“Many ski area operators abdicate responsibility for what happens to their customers to the ski school director and PSIA,” says Robin Smith of Swain Ski Center, N.Y., who co-chairs the new joint committee of ski instruction of NSAA and PSIA. Ski school directors, Smith observes, are frequently not even invited to department-head meetings at many ski areas.
Smith is among a growing number of general managers coming out of ski school ranks, who believe area management must shoulder more responsibility for making instruction better.
My own disheartening encounter with ski area management indifference came last spring as I awaited the return of survey forms that Snow Country had mailed to ski area operators. The survey sought to determine what consumers and instructors want in a better instruction experience. More than 250 operators had the opportunity to participate.
Initial returns from resorts, however, were so meager that I ordered a phone campaign to raise the response rate. Even then, one-third of area owners and managers passed the questionnaire on to their ski school directors to answer. I don’t know if they did so because of indifference or because they lacked the knowledge to answer the questions. In the end, fortunately, we obtained a reliable sample of opinions from both area operators and ski school directors.
Area Operators’ Perceptions
The study reveals disparities in the way instructors, ski school directors and area operators perceive matters.
Instructors and area operators, for example, were invited to recommend ideas for making ski schools and instructors more valuable to ski resorts. Sixteen percent of area operators wrote of the need to focus on customers and their needs, versus eight percent of instructors. And 18 percent of area operators mentioned the need to create an environment of excitement and fun for learning; only four percent of instructors thought to make a similar recommendation.
A majority of ski school directors are convinced their ski schools are well directed, but only 31 percent of instructors think similarly. How to manage schools better? Not surprisingly, perhaps, area managers are twice as likely as ski school directors to think area management should give more guidance and direction to ski school operations.
Is Instruction Bad?
The shrill criticism of PSIA has given rise to the notion that something is terribly wrong with ski instruction. Hence, it is noted, only one in ten skier-visits results in a lesson. Inferentially, the public must be dissatisfied, notwithstanding the lack of direct research to prove it.
Ski school success in attracting students, however, may be no worse than that of other sports. A 1989 National Golf Foundation study, for example, revealed that only 10.2 percent of golfers reported taking a lesson in the past year, about the same ratio as in skiing.
One way to determine if skiers are satisfied or not with ski instruction is to ask people who’ve actually taken lessons. An overwhelming number (84 percent) of skiers report they were satisfied with the lessons they took. Those who weren’t satisfied typically said “The instructor didn’t answer my specific problem,” or “He always skied ahead and never watched us.”
More revealing were skiers’ answers to the question: “What would most increase your satisfaction with instruction?” Similarly, we asked area operators, ski school directors and instructors: On a scale of 1 to 10, “What would most increase your students’ satisfaction with taking lessons?”
The results reveal a fairly high degree of agreement among people who buy lessons and those who purvey them. “Better teaching/communication skills by instructors,” and “More rapid success in improving skiing ability,” everyone agrees, would most improve students’ satisfaction with lesson-taking.
Technical Knowledge
But what of this finding? Students rated third highest in importance the wish that ski school improve their technical knowledge of the sport, a factor rated third or fourth *lowest* by area operators, ski school directors and instructors.
The finding shouldn’t surprise anyone in the industry who is familiar with focus groups conducted by Milton Brand a few years ago. Brand found consumers overwhelmed by the sport’s technical jargon.
As a remedy, Snow Country’s Ski Schools, taught by present and former PSIA Demonstration Team members, have offered apres-ski sessions on ski technique, ski design, boot-fitting and knee alignment. Students devour the information.
If skiers perceive technical knowledge as more important to their satisfaction than do area operators or ski school directors, it does suggest one thing. The industry has been overlooking an important consumer need.
And what of certification itself? What importance do people attach to having a certified instructor teach a lesson? Not much, according to the very people who supply the instruction. Ski area operators ranked it dead last.
Students, on the other hand, were twice as likely as area operators — and more likely even than instructors — to believe satisfaction with a lesson will increase when it is taught by a certified instructor. One out of four skiers, however, were unable to confirm whether or not their last lesson was taught by a certified instructor.
Skiers and area operators agree that reducing the cost would not greatly improve satisfaction with lessons. But the finding shouldn’t necessarily be construed as an invitation to raise prices. Go back to numero uno in the ratings: What customers. . .and area operators. . .want most is better teaching and communication skills. Without them, a ski lesson is a poor value, regardless of the pros.
Test Teaching Skills
The study suggests that ski schools that can dramatically improve teaching/communication skills or make students progress faster, will be in a better position to increase revenues — whether by charging more or by increased enrolment.
But how is it possible to recruit and train instructors to teach and communicate better when those skills are not typically measured in certification exams? Only one in five instructors, according to the study, believes PSIA certification helps to improve teaching/communication skills.
PSIA certification, like that of most countries, concentrates on the candidate’s ability to make technically flawless turns in front of examiners. A Swiss National Ski School attempt to assess teaching aptitude during certification has evidently floundered.
The solution may be found in clinics and education at the ski school level. Three-quarters of area managers believe their ski schools already offer excellent training, but only 56 percent of instructors agree. Clearly, there’s an unmet need here.
Could certification be changed so that instructors would have to improve their communication/teaching skills in order to pass? Max Lundberg, who heads PSIA’s education program, would like to see it happen, but finding ways to measure such skills has practical difficulties. Franz Hoppichler of Interski, who is arguably the world’s leading authority on ski instruction, is pessimistic that certification, as we know it, will solve anything. Jerry Warren, the author of PSIA’s Center Line, believes the answer lies in clinics at the ski school level, taught by experts in communication skills.
Many believe certification, with its rigid emphasis on form, is actually counter-productive. Robin Smith and Jonathan Jenkins of Ski Roundtop, Penn., are both ski area operators who once headed ski schools. Both give low marks to PSIA’s style of certifying instructors.
“Every resort owner,” says Jenkins, “should go through the agony of a PSIA certification exam. Maybe then they’d understand how instructors come to inflict the same punishment on the customer.”
Area Operator Apathy
Further reflecting the low esteem of certification, one out of four area operators believes an instructor, lacking certification, can be a highly skilled ski teacher.
Area management cynicism, indifference and apathy, however, are part of the problem. Snow Country had to make numerous phone calls to prod area operators into responding to the study. Even then, a third of them passed the questionnaire on to their ski school directors, presumably because they lacked interest or knowledge to answer it.
As a further indictment, Smith notes, ski area operators typically fail to invite the ski school director to department-head meetings. Yet this is the department that has the most intimate contact with the customer!
What To Do
Clearly, there’s a business opportunity here. Focus on improving your ski school. Run clinics for your instructors to improve their teaching and communication skills. Make sure students ski, not stand around. Keep the number of students in a class reasonable and commensurate with the skills of the instructor.
Any effort to introduce reforms will pay off, if for no other reason — sad to say — than the probability your competitors won’t match what you do.
The joint NSAA/PSIA committee clearly has work to do and valuable new information to act on.
How The Study Was Done
To gain a more objective insight into the controversies surrounding ski instruction, I determined last winter to ask similar questions of four different groups of people: instructors, ski area operators, ski school directors and skiers who’ve taken lessons in the past two seasons.
We obtained responses from 83 ski area operators and 77 ski school directors, representing the management of 121 American ski schools. Together, the responding areas employ 11,000 instructors and sell $50 million of lessons per winter. The average gross of the respondents’ schools was $430,000 annually; the median $200,000. The average ski area reported 202,500 skier-visits a year, with a median of 137,000 visits.
We also obtained completed questionnaires from 675 instructors, each of whom averaged 11.2 years of teaching experience. And we obtained responses from 404 skiers who filled in a questionnaire that appeared in the May/June issue of Snow Country. At an average age of 44, the students typically had been skiing for 14 years and spent an average of $375 per winter on lessons, although half of them spent less than $150. At the other end of the scale, half had invested in private lessons or special courses. They were mostly advanced or intermediate skiers. Two of five were women.
In designing the questionnaire and publishing the results, I was greatly assisted by PSIA, NSAA and the Research Department of the New York Times Sports & Leisure Magazine group.
—JF.
| Factor | Ski Students | Ski School Instructors | Ski School Directors | Ski Area Operators |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Better teaching/communication skills by instructors | 6.3 | 6.5 | 7.7 | 7.7 |
| More rapid success in improving student’s skiing ability | 6.6 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 6.7 |
| More actual skiing, milage | 5.7 | 6.9 | 6.5 | 6.2 |
| Instructor’s friendliness, socializing more with students | 5.5 | 5.4 | 6.7 | 6.7 |
| Smaller class size | 5.8 | 5.9 | 5.4 | 6.2 |
| Improved technique demonstrations by instructors | 5.5 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 5.2 |
| Increasing student’s technical knowledge | 6.0 | 5.0 | 4.4 | 4.6 |
| Exploring ski area | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.7 |
| Reduced lesson cost | 4.8 | 4.7 | 3.5 | 4.3 |
| Whether or not taught by a certified instructor | 4.8 | 3.3 | 3.7 | 2.5 |
For Most Instructors, Teaching Is a Part-time Affair
American ski instructors closely match their clients in age, marital status and education. Their household income is 57 percent greater than the U.S. median. Clearly, ski teaching is a seasonal avocation, supplementing income from other jobs and professions such as school teaching, engineering or other occupations. Even in winter, 7 out of 10 instruct part-time. Only 7 percent say they make more than $10,000 annually from ski teaching. Full-time instructors tend to be concentrated at large destination resorts in the West.
| Measure | East/Northwest Central/Alaska | Rocky Mountain/Intermountain/West |
|---|---|---|
| Average Age | 40.7 | 39.9 |
| College/vocational school graduates or better | 88% | (NA) |
| % Married | 65% | 49% |
| Median HHI | $55,400 | $35,400 |
| Average HHI | $78,100 | $58,000 |
| Median individual income from teaching skiing | $1,200 | $3,000 |
| Average individual income from teaching skiing | $2,500 | $5,600 |
| % Principal occupation skiing | 10% | 32% |
| Average # days/week instructors worked | 3.2 | 3.7 |
| Total # days worked during ski season | 38.8 | 65.5 |
