More than 1,300 buyers of group travel and 175 journalists from 57 countries touched base with U.S. travel suppliers in nearly 1,000 booths in three tightly orchestrated show days. What made 1991 Pow Wow significant for skiing is that it took place in Denver, the first time this annual exposition has been held in ski country.
Although suppliers of all types and sizes were represented, Pow Wow is dominated by the big players in American tourism — major theme parks, airlines, car rental and motorcoach companies, hotel and motel chains and state and city convention and visitors bureaus.
The Denver media predicted that millions of dollars of business would be contracted for at the show ($1 million every six minutes was an oft-quoted figure), but ski resort representatives found it more geared to making and renewing personal contacts. “It’s a great grin and grip show,” said Mark Nakada, Snowbird’s national sales manager for tour and travel, of his third Pow Wow.
As the host state, Colorado netted prime space at the main entrance to the show floor and Colorado resorts dominated in their own booths or the state’s. Out-of-state areas belonging to Ski USA were able to share one booth. Bernie Weichsel, who runs Ski USA and is a veteran of 11 Pow Wows, said that being in sight of the mountains helped skiing. “This was the best representation skiing has had,” Weichsel said. “There were years when Ski USA was the lone wolf. This year we had six people in our booth. They had over 130 appointments. All the big resorts were here, and Colorado/Ski Country USA was there for the first time.”
CSCUSA also mounted a spectacular evening, closing off two blocks of Larimer Street in downtown Denver and turning it into a ski-town facsimile. Food and drink was served in tents and at trendy restaurants along the historic street, compliments of seven of Ski Country’s larger members. The Coors Freestyle Demonstration Team put on its aerial show at one end of the street, while delegates were able to borrow ski equipment and slide down a small hill of real snow piled on the other.
Delegates also visited ski resorts. In addition to pre- and post-fam tours in much of the Rocky Mountain region, nearly 300 people were bused to Arapahoe Basin for a day of spring skiing, two busloads went to Copper Mountain and Winter Park hosted about 700 who filled the Denver & Rio Grande Ski Train for a daylong excursion.
“We were gratified to hear people ooh and aah over the beauty of the state,” said Barbara Clarke, director of international sales for the Aspen Skiing Co. “Last year, Pow Wow was in Orlando so there was a lot of Disney. People were asking us, ‘How are you going to follow this up?’ In Colorado, everything is natural. When you see something spectacular, you don’t have to wonder if there’s a man inside or if it’s battery-operated.”
But the heart of the action was on the exhibition floor of the Denver Convention Center. “It’s a huge show where you make great contacts,” Snowbird’s Nakada said. “In terms of writing contracts, it’s all futures.”
Ski resorts that control lodging could quote net rates on the spot, while others directed prospective clients to specific lodging sales reps or later shared leads with properties. Sales staffs followed up on Pow Wow leads in June and expected contracts and bookings to swell between July and October.
Tour operators are the key to unlocking the international market — and getting overseas wholesalers together with domestic suppliers is the whole purpose of Pow Wow. Ski resorts zeroed on prospective markets and did necessary followup both by direct-mail and by personal sales calls.
“Our overseas business is about two percent, which amounts to 20- to 30,000-skier days,” said Steamboat Ski Corp. public relations manager Barb Jennings. “We’ve seen dramatic increases, especially from England, Australia, Mexico and Canada. Germany is strong. The romance of the old West is a big seller and a lot of people are familiar with Billy Kidd [Steamboat’s director of skiing].”
“We had 120 contacts from 33 countries,” said Aspen Ski Company’s Clarke. “There’s a surprising breakdown. On our preliminary list, over half were from South America, and most were from Brazil — 14 tour operators. There were nine from Argentina and seven from Colombia. We also had six from Finland and, most surprising, three from Turkey. Some [tour operators] were just starting [ski] programs and their attitude is, ‘We’ll go with the big names in the business.’”
No one has played the international game more persistently and effectively than Breckenridge, which this year shared a booth with its Ski The Summit stablemates Copper Mountain and Keystone. “When we started in the U.K. six years ago, the first tour operator brought in 36 skiers,” said the Breckenridge representative, Rebecca Hamm. “Three years later, we had 36 tour operators out of London. The resort chamber is saying that 8.5 percent of the town’s overnights last season came from the U.K.”
“We wrote some contracts, but mainly got a lot of good leads,” Copper Mountain’s vice president of sales and hospitality services Bill DeForrest said. “I think we have leads that could result in a million dollars worth of business.”
Pow Wow was not simply a game for big players. Dave Tragethon of Monarch was there manning the Colorado/Ski Country USA booth, but found spinoff benefits as well. “Originally Monarch went to support the international marketing effort for Colorado,” he said, “but we found we could plant the seed that there’s more to skiing here than just Aspen and Vail. Some international tour operators are looking for smaller areas to expand their product. One or two thousand skier visits a year would have been beyond my initial expectations before Pow Wow, but now it could happen.”
This was an opportunity for ski areas to insert themselves into programs aimed at vacationers who are also skiers. Steve Lowe, director of sales for Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, worked under the umbrella of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority to book a component into California or California/ Nevada itineraries, especially those aimed at the Pacific Rim market, as well as at British and Latin American visitors. “We are typically a secondary part of a trip to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and we get three or four days,” Lowe said. “Even skiers who come here want to do that. Most operators are looking for year-round programs or for winter of ’92.”
The Travel Industry Association is predicting a seven to nine percent growth in inbound tourism in the next year. In the light of skiing’s new prominence at 1991 Pow Wow, it will be interesting to see how participants’ international numbers stack up those projected for tourism in general.
