The tram at Cannon Mountain, N.H., for instance, carries more passengers in the summer than it does in the winter. In Colorado, the summer business at the state’s ski resorts is the fastest growing segment of the vacation industry. Elsewhere, particularly in the Northwest, Southeast, and parts of the Midwest, summer business is hard to find.
“If we have reasonable snow,” said Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Association, “our winters are quite generous. There isn’t a feeling that we’ve got to do a summer business.”
Nevertheless, summer is alive and well in the mountains. From rock concerts to symphony orchestras, from golf to tennis, water slides, Alpine Slides and cannonball slides, hikers and bikers, the sky’s the limit on what ski resorts have tried in order to drum up business in the off-season.
In Colorado, the emphasis on summer began about five years ago, according to Deb Milo, director of public relations at the Colorado Tourism Board. “The ski resorts had such success in developing children’s programs in the winter, they decided to try the same thing in the summer,” she said.
Crested Butte was one of the forerunners in the ski resort-turned-summer playground with its “Sports Afield” program — a whole series of sports and activities designed for all members of the family. Since Crested Butte started this family smorgasbord summer program four years ago, other resorts have adopted this menu.
All the major resorts in the state now have extensive summer programs, many of them anchored around mountain biking. Growth on the summer side of the business is starting to outstrip increases in the winter business. From 1985 to 1990, summer retail sales in counties with ski areas grew at an 8.5 percent annual clip. Preliminary indicators from last summer point to an even bigger increase. “To tell you the truth, we were expecting a down summer based on the economy and the Gulf War,” Milo said. “But it looks like we’re going to have the biggest increases we’ve had.”
Farther west in California, summer is not such a big deal at most ski areas. Mountain biking has been good at a few resorts — Mammoth, Northstar and a couple of the southern areas such as Snow Summit and Bear Mountain. But for the most part, summer is “catch as catch can,” Roberts said.
One huge exception last summer was the two-day Grateful Dead concert at Squaw Valley that attracted 11,000 people each day. “That’s the first major rock event I can remember at a ski area in a long time,” Roberts said. “Most of the music tends to be more genteel. Summer’s fairly quiet out here.”
In the Northeast, the summer business predates the ski business. Most resort regions like Mt. Washington Valley in New Hampshire or Stowe in Vermont were big summer attractions long before the ski trade moved to town. The emphasis on summer continues in the Northeast, but priorities (and cash flow) have definitely reversed.
“We don’t make any money on our summer programs,” said Laura Wittern, director of the news bureau at Killington, Vt. “The main reason we do it is to help keep up the traffic flow for the whole region.”
Five years ago, only one or two restaurants around Killington stayed open during the summer. Now there are several, and many other businesses as well. “Our summer programs help these area businesses stay alive,” added Carol Carosa, special events manager at Killington.
After experimenting with several event strategies, Killington has found one that works well — a mixture of golf, tennis, music, theater and small exhibits, wrapped around two major media and spectator attractions — the Killington Stage Race (the country’s leading cycling event) and a two-week horse show.
“The playhouse and music theater keep things going, but they don’t draw people from outside the area,” Carosa said. “They’re added attractions. The horse show and stage race bring in people from outside. So it’s a good mix.”
Breaking even on summer programs seems to be the goal in the Northeast where summer events are undertaken more to keep traffic flowing and the staff working than to add to the bottom line.
The manager of the summer campground at Gunstock, N.H., for instance, is the area’s rental manager in the winter. At Pico, Vt., the ski shop manager in the winter manages the Alpine Slide in the summer. Alpine Slides, once found all over the Northeast, are fast disappearing. “The novelty has worn off,” said Hilary Nangle, spokesperson for the New Hampshire Ski Areas Association. Attitash, N.H., which with Bromley, Vt., put in one of the first Alpine Slides in the country in 1976, now has the only Alpine Slide remaining in all of New Hampshire and Maine. Attitash also has three water slides, which have overtaken the Alpine Slides in popularity.
Midwest areas are doing in the summer exactly what they do in the winter — going after the local metro market. And for the most part, they’re doing it with golf.
“There are a lot of parallels between a golf course and a ski area,” said Chris Stoddard, executive director of the Midwest Ski Areas Association. “You can use the base lodge facility with the golf course. The irrigation is similar, so you can use the same pumping equipment. The grooming is the same — cutting the grass on the fairways, cutting the grass on the trails. So a lot of the equipment is transferable. Also, many of the ski areas are not in the mountains, so the terrain is similar. We’re only a hop, skip and a jump away from a lot of the metropolitan regions so it’s an easy drive. There’s also a lot of overlap in the markets. Many skiers are golfers.”
Golf, and to some extent, tennis, is also the primary emphasis in the summer in the Southeast. The Japanese company that bought Snowshoe, W. Va., is developing a summer business around golf. Wintergreen, Va. has three golf courses. “Golf is a big operation at a few areas, but for the most part, most ski resorts in the Southeast close up shop during the summer,” said D. Grady Moretz, president of the Southeast Ski Areas Association. “Age and maturity has a lot to do with that. As we get skiing established solid, we’ll probably start looking for other endeavors.”
