In your editorial, “Some Thoughts on Growth,” (Speak-Out, Summer 1978), you question the number of skier-days projected from Skiing Magazine’s research project conducted by Opinion Research Corporation. You state, “. . . we must come to grips with a figure of well in excess of 150,000,000 Alpine skier days for the 1976-77 season.” Let me try.
Your 150 million figure is somewhat misleading. First of all, the ORC survey did not obtain any information on teenage skier days nor on skiing activity of the under-twelves. Putting any kind of figure on the skiing frequency of this group falls into the guesstimate classification of surveying, and I’d thought the industry had enough of that.
Secondly, it should be noted that the actual survey estimate of 93 million adult skier days must be interpreted in light of what the survey question asked. Specifically, the question concerned how many days the skier spent on “skiing trips.” Inasmuch as we were interested in the total market—including travel and other support industries—this figure, averaging 11.1 days, is significant. However, it is only slightly larger than the number of days spent in actual skiing. Even assuming every ski trip of four days or more took up two full days not spent in skiing, for example, we would still get an average of 10.3 days for the adult Alpine skiing population, or a projected total of 86 million days.
Thirdly, you seem to assume that all the skier visits took place in U.S. areas. The questionnaire did not ask how many visits to U.S. areas were made, but simply the total number of days on ski trips. U.S. citizens who ski in Europe are in the group that would be well above the 11.1 average (you don’t take a trip abroad for a weekend of skiing), yet quite possibly their total number of days skiing at U.S. areas might be well below the average. On the basis of what our study learned about international ski travel, it’s likely that trips outside the U.S. accounted for an additional 6 million days, leaving us with a net domestic total of about 80 million adult days of skiing.
So much for what the survey tells us about skiing frequency. Let’s turn now to the figures you cite on ski areas. First off, it would probably be closer to the truth to say the total number of U.S. ski areas is in the neighborhood of 1,200 ski areas, if you include every rope tow area around the country. Secondly, if you realize the number of areas accessible to metropolitan populations that run two and even three sessions a day (places like Great Gorge, N.J.; Mt. Tom, Mass.; Powder Ridge, Conn.; etc.) as well as the many areas that open early because of snowmaking and close late because of spring snows, the average ski area season is probably closer to 120 days than the 100 days you assume. Thirdly, average capacity is probably in excess of 1,500 an area. Then too, there are large numbers of students who ski by virtue of an arrangement with their school with no count taken of the number of skier visits in these programs.
Summing up, of course there is a possibility that some of the respondents in Skiing’s survey erred in remembering how many times they skied, though the likelihood is that those who skied many times were off more than those who skied only a few times, underestimating as often as overestimating. However, it seems clear from all of the data we’ve looked at that whatever response errors there may be are neither systematic nor consequential in nature. Logic supports the findings of what we know to be a sound statistical study.
On one score, there is no disagreement. I can only endorse your concluding thought that we must make sure that the ski industry continues to give the public what it wants.
Al Greenberg
Editor-in-Chief, Skiing Magazine
Ed Note: We are grateful to Al Greenberg for elaborating and clarifying as he has done. We are still not in full agreement with all his points, especially when he is not willing to count as skier-days any skiing done by the under-eighteens. But we certainly are not going to debate here in public. We’ll try to convince Al quietly over a martini sometime soon.
But, we would like to caution our readers to keep their powder dry if the numbers game heats up.
Skiing Magazine’s research study, executed by Opinion Research Corp., developed some startling figures. Good, big, bullish, happy figures. Nothing wrong with that. But the figures seemed to disagree with other industry norms, such as generally accepted figures for annual skier-days. Nothing wrong with that either. But, the factor of disparity seemed to be about 3:1, and there’s the rub. It is hard to swallow when it is suggested that one’s best calculations of skiers-days and total ski purchases are off by that 3:1 factor.
So, you try to make adjustments — find ways to make everything compatible. And this is where Al Greenberg’s comments are useful. Making all the “Kentucky windage” adjustments suggested by Al we can close the gap to where we differ by only 100 percent, rather than 200. It’s a puzzlement!
In the meantime, the U.S. Forest Service is getting antsy about its own study, which is being designed and executed by Sno-engineering and (again!) Opinion Research. They’re nervous because a highly-respected sister agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, apparently came up with egg on its face earlier this year with a study that was widely ridiculed because of a large disparity between survey estimates and verified figures available from other sources.
There has been some finger pointing at the telephone sampling methods used in the USF&WS study, which makes Sno-engineering and the Forest Service nervous because ORC used much the same technique in both the Skiing and Forest Service studies.
Others wonder out loud about the degree of accuracy of any research that depends on the subject’s recall. How accurately does a person recall how many times he skied, or played tennis or went to the movies during a year? Kinsey found that men tended to exaggerate when recalling frequency of intercourse. Maybe we all fantasize a little in recalling pleasurable experiences. Like skiing.
The only thing certain is that the researchers will stick to their guns. All surveys are “methodologically sound and statistically accurate.” And of course they’re right, because they make the rules.
We look forward to seeing the Forest Service study this fall, and our native skepticism notwithstanding, we have confidence in that study. We have one suggestion to them, however: don’t pick up Skiing’s nomenclature about “serious” skiers. “Heavy users” is fine, or “frequent skiers,” but let’s banish serious skiers. They have no place in our fun-filled world.
We’ll take that up also with Al over that martini we mentioned. Now, as to being a serious drinker . . .
Correction
In the Summer issue of SAM, in an article entitled “The Lessons of Colorado’s Photogate,” the editor — not the author, Charlie Meyers — incorrectly stated that, “Doug Shelton was later rehired.”
He was not. SAM apologizes to the management of Winter Park for this unintentional error.
