Nationally, the 2000 census revealed huge gains in population for minorities of all ethnic backgrounds. Do these new population groups represent an untapped market for the ski industry? Yes, says Wilson, who estimates nonwhites now make up about 40 percent of Mountain High’s visitors. Are ski areas aggressively going after these new markets? Well, that’s another story. With the exception of the California resorts, the answer is largely no, although the issue of ethnic marketing is at least on the radar screen at some areas.
“We’re definitely paying attention to the Latin market and the Asian market,” said June Brinkman, marketing director at Hunter Mountain, N.Y., a scant two hours from New York City. “We’ve never reached out to ethnic markets, but we’re discussing it now. The way the ski market is, you have to.”
Brinkman said ideas being discussed include advertising on Spanish and Japanese radio and television stations, bilingual instructors and more diversity of skin color in the models the mountain uses for its print materials.
What seems clear from talking to ski area marketing directors is that they don’t know how to reach some of these ethnic groups. Even an old hand like Wilson, who has been doing ethnic marketing for 10 years, says the lack of homogeneity in many cultures and the sheer number of different cultures make marketing to them a challenge.
“There’s not really a lot of ethnic groups that stay ethnically separated in our country, especially the youth,” Wilson said. “It’s difficult to talk to them as a group. You can no longer go out and advertise in the Korean News and expect to reach 12- to 18-year-old Korean youths and Koreans are still one of the most homogeneous groups. We felt the best solution to reaching young ethnic youth was by segmenting out radio stations.”
Ten years ago, Wilson said Mountain High advertised only on rock and roll stations. “We knew we’d get the lion’s share of our potential guests—young white teens.” Now, Mountain High advertises on alternative rock, modern rock, hip hop, top 40 and other formats to reach the entire spectrum of its potential youth market. “We can reach certain ethnic groups more on some formats than others,” Wilson said.
Snow Summit, Calif., is also paying more attention to the Hispanic market. Last year, the area ran a series of Spanish ads and promotions on a popular Los Angeles Spanish radio station. “We did see an increase in Hispanic participation last winter,” said Genevieve Gunnarson, communications director. “We’ve made a commitment to the Hispanic community that we’re going to continue.”
Possible ideas for the upcoming season include translating its brochures and Website into Spanish, promoting its bilingual instructors and more ethnically diverse models in its print materials.
Other areas have had less success reaching specific population groups. Winter Park, Colo., the closest major resort to Denver, last summer hired an Hispanic marketing firm to promote summer programs. “It wasn’t very effective,” said Mary Nichols, communications coordinator. “I don’t know if it was the programs or the marketing.”
This summer, Winter Park is trying again with a Latin festival. “The idea is to get the Latin community to come here for that and see what else we have to offer,” Nichols said.
At one time, marketers at Wachusett Mountain, Mass., considered translating its brochure, but found there were too many languages. “We decided to have certain pages of our brochure translated into Chinese,” said David Crowley, general manager. “But we found there were so many dialects it was useless. And that was just Chinese.”
Waterville Valley, N.H., also had little success advertising in Japanese and Chinese publications a few years ago. “It didn’t seem to build on those numbers,” said Debbie Moore, marketing director. “Those numbers were growing anyway, not because of the ads but because of our family focus.”
Rather than trying to appeal to specific groups, Moore said Waterville markets to families of all backgrounds. Other resorts also said their marketing focus and image they project were broader than trying to target specific ethnic groups.
Waterville targets families; Wintergreen, Va., outdoor enthusiasts. “We’re not slanting our marketing to any one group,” said Don Sawyer, marketing director. “We use pictures of people in action, panoramas of the mountain. I don’t think it’s beneficial to target particular groups.”
At Stowe, Vt., marketing vice president Michael Colburn said the area targets known users. “Our focus is not on who you are and why you are here,” Colburn said. “It’s ‘we’re glad you’re here and are you coming back?’ We wrap our arms tightest around our current customers. That is the most cost-efficient way to market. Sixty-five to 70 percent of our marketing budget is focused on our base. In terms of new markets, our focus is based heavily on extensive market research. From Toronto to Washington to Boston, we know where our potential users live, their ages, income and that’s who we target. Our budget is not huge. We can’t afford to take a shotgun approach.”
Jane Eshbaugh, marketing director at Holiday Valley, N.Y., said singling out people of different ethnic backgrounds can sometimes backfire. “We have very few people of other ethnic backgrounds who ski here,” Eshbaugh said. “But if you ask to take pictures of somebody who’s black or Asian, it’s almost like, ‘Why are you asking me?’ It’s definitely an issue you have to consider before you ask someone to be in a photo shoot.”
At Snoqualmie, Wash., which has witnessed steadily increasing numbers of minority visitors, particularly Asians, word of mouth seems to be the most effective way of marketing to a diverse population. “It’s hard to pinpoint all the different minorities,” said Guy Lawrence, marketing director. “When they come here they seem to enjoy themselves and we get very good word of mouth. We treat them well. That seems easier to do than trying to reach all the different kinds of minorities and talking to them individually. I think we could do a better job of representing the diversity of our customer base in our print materials. It’s just a question of pinpointing where and spending wisely.”
Ethnic marketing. It’s here and likely to become more of a focus at many ski areas in coming years.
