A Memorable Convention
The NSAA Convention in New Orleans May 22-25 was remarkable for its single-minded focus on the organization’s Growth Initiative. NSAA president Michael Berry and his entire staff orchestrated a well-rounded symphony of keynotes, workshops and seminars on conversion. As Berry said, many ski schools are maxed out on weekends—there’s no lack of trial. But there’s plenty of room for improvement in converting those who try to into long-term skiers and riders.
While the fact that the industry needs to convert more people into life-long customers is not exactly new, the convention provided an opportunity to explore some general rules of thumb for growth. Among them were: * Address the needs, interests and culture of the two largest groups of customers—Baby Boomers and multi-cultural teens. Recognize that each of these groups is looking for something different: comfort and convenience for Boomers, inexpensive fun for teens. * Invite all ethnic groups to become part of mountain sports. * Emphasize the mountains as a place where skiers and riders can escape from daily pressures, get back to nature and reinvent themselves in a secure environment. * Help skiers and riders improve their abilities so that they will have so much fun that they will be eager to return. * Ensure that each visitor has a positive experience at every “point of contact” with the resort, from the parking lot and cafeteria to the rental shop and liftline. * Make the best possible impression on students in ski and riding lessons because this is the most lengthy point of contact. And, use the lesson as an opportunity to bring newcomers into the mountain culture, not just teach skills.
What was perhaps most impressive about the meeting is that the NSAA is keeping the Growth Initiative its top priority. Our industry has a long history of launching ambitious, long-term plans and abandoning them after a year or two, long before they could be expected to produce measurable results. But NSAA is keeping the Growth Initiative alive. In his keynote, Berry promised a constant stream of communications and programs aimed at conversion and growth. That may be the most optimistic development of all.
Get Smart About Ski School
By Rick Kahl
Conversion was the keyword at the recent NSAA convention and nearly every presentation on conversion eventually centered on the role of the ski instructor in this process.
Funny, but there were very few ski instructors at the convention (with the notable exception of PSIA president John Armstrong). And NSAA president Michael Berry hit upon the key shortcoming in the conversion plan during his keynote address—management doesn’t often talk with ski school. The ski school director is rarely viewed as an integral part of the management team.
Many ski schools often operate as separate, independent fiefdoms. And they shouldn’t. Ski schools are as important to the overall marketing of a resort as customer service, advertising and events—probably more so. Ski schools are too important to ignore and must be brought into the management circle.
Management also needs to change its view of ski schools strictly as profit centers. Ski schools should be viewed as marketing programs that also generate profits rather than as pure profit centers.
There is an important difference between these two goals. A ski school can maximize its profits by increasing class size, developing skiers slowly, even keeping them at the intermediate plateau. The result is that short-term ski school revenues look good, but at the expense of the long-term success for every other profit center. Converting these same skiers into core participants, though, may well require smaller class sizes, developing skiers quickly and moving them past the intermediate rut into the ranks of the core.
And serving core customers better just might be good business, too. At present, skiers see little benefit from lessons beyond level 5 (wide-track parallel). Yet, as skiers’ technique and expertise grow, they ski more often. Ski school should offer excellent instruction for advanced levels, guarantee the results, and teach skiers to use the entire mountain—bumps, powder, trees, pipe and park.
Of course, all this will require new approaches. Change is never easy, especially in an entrenched, independent fiefdom. So management must provide a clear charge to ski school and offer ongoing encouragement. And prodding, if necessary.
The Shade of Things to Come
By Roberto L. Moreno
They seem like unlikely saviors, those ragtag, multi-cultural snowboarders who flock to play at Mountain High Resort in Southern California. But saviors they are.
In five short years they’ve helped transform 220 acres of marginally profitable ski terrain into one of the most happening resorts in America. Winter visits have tripled, to 550,000. With a measly 40 inches of snowfall last season, zero moving sidewalks and a base lodge straight out of a ’70s Warren Miller flick, Mountain High has become one irreverent and convincing case study for diversity.
Mountain High is a day ski area and arguably Southern California’s most popular winter resort. Not bad when you’re competing against the “Mouse House” and more attractions than are usually found in most developed countries.
An hour or two by car from most places within the diverse megalopolis of Southern California, it’s a resort that could not insulate itself from the realities of the changing youth and minority demographics of America by building mountain condos and alpine villages where nobody really lives. So it adjusted to a youthful amalgam of hip-hop, surfer and low-rider cultures. Today, 80 percent of its paying customers are snowboarders, and they are an ethnically diverse group.
Mountain High’s staff also reflects the region’s diversity. At a time when minorities are often relegated to the kitchens and laundry rooms of most ski and snowboarding resorts, 40 percent of the frontline personnel is minority, 50 percent is female, the CFO is Hispanic and the assistant ski patrol director is a Chinese-Puerto Rican from New York. Some key communications personnel are ages 19 to 23.
Mountain High and its more elegant neighbor to the North, Northstar-at-Tahoe, are two of a handful of resorts that are wisely taking creative, yet different paths to reach out and embrace minority snowriders with hip youth and diversity oriented selling strategies. In the vernacular of the young snowriders the industry seeks to convert to skiing and snowboarding, these resorts are “bombs” (that’s a good thing). And they are making the long-awaited business case for minority outreach.
And none too soon. This year’s National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) Demographic Study documents national minority participation at America’s ski hills at seven percent. And while that news hasn’t exactly knocked anybody off their sticks, those numbers fly in the face of industry efforts to concentrate on developing youthful skiers and riders.
Why? Because minorities are the future youth! In Denver, for example, more than 37 percent of the population under age 18 is non-white. And increasingly, the under-18 population of most American cities is becoming multiethnic and multicultural. By the year 2010, the majority of young adults in the United States are expected to be minorities, in large part because the Hispanic population is growing at a rate almost twice that of the majority. So obviously, youth conversion strategies that don’t target minorities and accept the inevitable browning of America are doomed to “bonk” (that’s a bad thing).
Hopefully, the examples of Mountain High and Northstar will pave the way for more efforts designed to romance the sport to more youthful and minority customers. The future of skiing and snowboarding—your future—depends on it.
—Roberto Moreno is owner and operator of Moreno & Co., a marketing, communications and diversity consulting firm ([email protected]). He is a former ski patroller, instructor and hotelier from Summit County, Colorado.
Foul Language
By Arnie Wilson, Ski Correspondent, Financial Times (London); Editor, Ski and Board Magazine
Congratulations to Jules Older and his Ski Press Magazine for targeting some overused and facile words in ski articles. I couldn’t agree more about “pow”—it makes me wince, and it’s banned in Ski and Board, the Ski Club of Great Britain’s magazine. I think we may have lost the battle against “awesome.” Being a pedant, I much prefer “awe-inspiring.” “Sick” is used once in a (long) while, usually with a little irony thrown in.
One of my other pet hates is “dump.” In the UK it’s always linked in my mind with “taking a dump”—an unfortunate metaphor when we are talking of the magical precipitation that keeps us all in business.
But the one that gets me every time is the aberrant apostrophe. I’m so used to seeing things like “Powder Ridge Valley resort at it’s best” or “the resort is known for it’s steep-and-deep terrain” that I’m almost past caring. We’re just as bad in the UK. Drive down any road and you might find a sign saying “Pick Your Own Apple’s.” As we all know, really, it’s wrong to use “it’s” as a possessive because “it’s” already exists as an abbreviation for it is. My favorite misuse of all time was in a missive from Smugglers’ Notch, a ski area I’m very fond of, reminding me courteously that the resort is anxious “to get the apostrophe’s right.”
