In the past almost all of those traveling skiers would head to the big European resorts, but last year about 100,000 crossed the Atlantic to ski at North American resorts. Steadily falling airfares, increasing familiarity with the U.S. and the many advantages that North American resorts have over their European counterparts have helped foster a steady increase in British arrivals. Those advantages include shorter and more pleasant lift lines, a focus on customer service, consistently good snow conditions and a common language.
Carry Your Skis, Sir?
“We stress that in the U.S. and Canada everything operates at a far higher level,” says Terry Paige, general manager of Ski The American Dream. “Service considerations and the entire have-a-nice-day mentality is highly appealing. We talk about snow conditions that are consistently better than Europe. We talk about short or non-existent lift lines except on certain weekends.”
“There are plenty of major selling points for North America,” adds Ron Sims, North American product manager for Crystal Holidays, the U.K.’s largest producer of ski trips. “Improved capital investment means better lifts such as quads and almost no tow-bars.” His company is also seeing the British school-trip market starting to look west rather than south.
“We’ll probably do about 4,000 school kids per year,” says Sims. “If a teacher is responsible for chaperoning 40 kids, then easy access and transfers are essential. But the groups are starting to come to the East Coast for the first time and we expect them to gradually start venturing west.”
Another big plus for North American ski areas are childcare facilities. Basically standard in the U.S. and Canada, they often don’t exist at European resorts. Finally, ski and snowboard instruction is not only certain to be in English, but its approach is far more professional.
“For example,” says Sims, “the Perfect Turns program at American Skiing Company resorts goes far beyond the standards commonly available in Europe.”
Ski the American Dream, which describes itself as catering to “upper-end second or third timers,” offered 36 resorts to the 5,000 customers it had last season. Around 55 percent chose vacations in the U.S. and the rest in Canada. Of U.S.-bound travelers, over half picked Colorado with Utah the second most popular choice. Big Sky, Mont., Jackson Hole, Wyo., and the resorts of the Northeast, described by Paige as “very competitive,” also figured among the favorite picks. In Canada, Whistler remains by far the most popular choice among U.K. travelers though Tremblant is a close second.
But despite the fact better air services are likely in the near future and an increasingly active marketing role is being taken by individual resorts, Europe still remains a compelling and attractive destination.
The Birthplace of Après Ski
“Europe does have some advantages over the U.S.,” says Katherine Weekly, managing editor of the Daily Mail Ski Magazine. “There is the amazing scale and grandeur of Europe’s Alpine peaks. There is the ability to go ski touring. Villages are much closer together so you can cover miles of terrain dropping from one lift to the next and then to the next, while the isolation of most North American areas means you stay at the same place the entire time. And because North American resorts are newer, smaller and often not much more than recently built expanses of condos, the apres ski is usually much better in Europe. That makes a big difference because partying [price of alcohol is much cheaper on the continent than in the U.K.] traditionally plays a big part in a British ski vacation.”
But there are also the more obvious reasons for Brits traveling to European resorts: they’re closer and cheaper to ski.
Until the U.S. and British authorities sort out their anachronistic bi-lateral airline agreements, which keep transatlantic flights artificially high, British skiers will continue to look upon the expense as unnecessary. Meanwhile, recent deregulation of Europe’s internal air market means for the first time there is now a plethora of cheap internal flights available. For example, a weekend round-trip flight from London to Geneva was recently advertised for about $75, making three long weekend trips over a season a feasible alternative to the British average of nine nights for a ski vacation.
According to tour operator Ski Independents, the average price of a North American vacation is about $1,500 per person including transfers, hotel and flights. Their tours start at around $750 for Killington.
The expense of transatlantic flights, compounded by the limited service that carriers are allowed to offer, also has an effect of concentrating visitors in certain locations.
“Certain mountains are very hard to sell because of the airline schedule,” says Crystal’s Sims. “Anything over two stages is almost impossible to sell. For example, Taos or Crested Butte will only open up when United Airlines introduces its much-anticipated direct flights from London to Denver. The British Airways direct flight helps, but is still not nearly enough.”
Marketing the Positives
Much of the British wintersports marketing, regardless of destination, starts with the Daily Mail Ski Show, a large consumer show held annually in London. This attracts ski resorts and marketing organizations from around the world and draws around 75,000 people. Ski USA, a marketing group of major resorts coordinated by NSAA, this year organized its largest sales area at the show to date. A Colorado village in western mountain style was constructed, country and western music played and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream served.
“They wanted to do something that reflected the overall British image of the U.S.,” says Marie Francis, an official with the show. “It doesn’t matter how accurate it was. It was certainly better than previous efforts.”
It is significant that the annual drawing for a stay at a ski chalet, donated by Crystal Holidays and the Daily Mail newspaper, this year featured a chalet in the Lake Tahoe region, the first time the location was outside of Europe.
“In the past, I think those responsible for marketing the U.S. have not spent enough time stressing the positives to overcome the points of resistance,” says Marie Francis. “But increasing cooperation between resorts, airlines and travel producers has lead to enhanced synergy.”
Shows similar to the Daily Mail Ski Show are starting to crop up in other parts of the U.K. A show in Birmingham attracts 25,000 people while newer shows in Glasgow and Brighton are also drawing skiers.
The vast majority of British travelers to North America come on organized tour packages that include travel, accommodations and a resort liaison. The liaison is characteristic of British group travel so resorts are expected to provide a permanent liaison based at the ski area throughout the season. This “rep” meets transfers and is on the spot 24 hours a day to sort out problems.
Somewhere around 80 percent book through major retail travel agents such as Going Places or Lunn Polly. These agencies use the brochures compiled from any of the 150 or so operators offering ski travel, although the market is dominated by perhaps 10 companies, each with a minor difference in specialization or market position.
Other marketing efforts are also on the rise. Ski the American Dream has gone in for joint marketing with Lillywhites, a major sports retailer, and with Delta airlines.
A special in-store brochure was produced that was also sent to Lillywhites’ 30,000-strong mailing list. Included are coupons for specially-priced Ski The American Dream vacation packages, plus other discount coupons.
“It’s the first year, so we don’t know if it will be a success,” says Paige, “but Lillywhites has a very high-quality mailing list, plus a huge volume of people through their doors. It cost us the production of the brochure and inserts, plus the mailing and fulfillment. It doesn’t cost them anything.
“We are also doing more regional advertising working with Delta/Sabena and KLM/NW,” Paige adds. “The result is that we can offer more regional departures other than London, so we are targeting the cities of the north of England where we see fast-growing demand.”
Crystal Holidays relies on its strong mailing list with about one million people receiving their brochure each season.
Scotland-based Ski Independents is fast making a name for itself at the top of the market and relies more on word of mouth. “For our market it’s about service,” says Bennett. “We answer the phone promptly, say ‘yes’ first and then worry about details afterwards, and provide small extras like matching ticket wallets and luggage tags.”
Another aspect of the U.K. market is the demand for some other form of activity during a vacation.
“Close to 50 percent of clients do something in addition to their resort trip. Disney and Las Vegas are popular for travelers to California,” says John Bennett of Ski Independents. “Probably 50 percent of travelers to Whistler stop for at least one day in Vancouver. We strongly push our add-ons such as ‘See New York for an extra 42 pounds.’”
Paige agrees: “Probably half of all trips have some non-skiing component.”
All of it means steady growth in U.K. skiers and snowboarders traveling to North American resorts. And as long as the synergy between trip producers and North American parties continues to grow, that market share of the British invasion could grow even larger.
