As readers of this column know, we in the ski industry have our own angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin debate, and it’s called, “How many skiers are there, and how many skier-visits do they account for?” I went into considerable detail on the background of this debate in the Spring issue, and will merely recap it here.
The results of two major research projects have been released in the past year or so: 1) A study of the 1976-77 skier market sponsored by Ziff-Davis Publishing (Skiing Magazine); and 2) A study of the skier market 1977-78, — past, present and future — sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service. Both studies were conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, and made use of similar telephone screening interviews and national probability sampling techniques. Both studies found there were many more skiers out there than most people had believed — skiers being adults (in one aged 16 and over, in the other, 18 and over) — who had skied at least once in the season studied.
Both studies attempted to determine frequency of skiing, and the big troubles came when people multiplied the number of skiers by the number of times they said they had skied — a seemingly innocent mathematical projection — to come up with a figure for skier-visits. The figures were two to three times as high as the total skier-visits estimated for all ski areas.
At the recent NSAA convention a special all-day meeting of NSAA Economic Study Committee was held — augmented (enriched?) for the occasion by some visiting experts. An attempt was made to resolve the conundrum, and in a way it succeeded. Reasonable people reasoned together and concluded there really was no complete solution. And that’s what makes a conundrum a conundrum, and not just any old riddle.
There was some consensus. For instance — and this was a big one — we all agreed to agree that 14 million was a reasonable figure for today’s active Alpine skiers of all ages. This figure includes some “Kentucky windage” adjustments for the juniors who were not counted by either survey. There was no consensus on frequency of skiing, and none on the NSAA Economic Study figure of 43 million skier-visits for the season just past. Most participants– but not all —agreed that there is an undeterminable upward bias on skiing frequency figures that are based on a skier’s ability to recall with accuracy the number of times he or she skied. As for the 43 million figure, there was a general feeling that it understated the real situation, but nobody knew by how much.
There was goodwill enough, good sense and good humor too, as everyone strove mightily to make all the figures work, pushing and pulling their pet statistics as much as conscience would allow.
For instance, the Ziff-Davis study showed 8.3 million adult Alpine skiers skiing an average of 11.1 days in the season, and thus accounting for 92 million skier days. From that total they were willing to subtract six million skier-visits on the grounds that one does not ski on every day of a ski trip, taking into account departure and arrival days and also bad weather days. They also could see subtracting six million for skier-visits outside the U.S., and another eight million for cross-country days.
All of this brought the total down to 72 million skier-visits. The gap was narrowing.
Then it was the turn of NSAA’s 43 million to be scrutinized. Stacy Standley produced some calculations which suggested it was much too low, but with no measure of how much. OK, someone suggested, let’s bump it 50 percent to 65 million. This seemed both gallant and sporting, even if lacking in methodological refinement, and the gap narrowed still further: 65 million to 72 million.
But, the accommodation was illusory. The NSAA figures count every ticket-holder regardless of age, while the Ziff-Davis figure was for adults only. Add in the under-18’s and you’re up to at least a 130 million skier-visit total — perhaps higher. And now it was a good country mile that separated this from the “reasonable” estimates by the industry of skier-visits.
Several people, among them Wilbur LaPage of the Forest Service and Chuck Goeldner of the University of Colorado, were clearly exasperated by all these attempts to speculate on skier-visits — something that had not been measured by either study — when there was so much that could be done with what had been measured. In truth, this school of thought was right, and that is pretty much the way the meeting ended: with consensus on the overall number of active Alpine skiers , consensus that both studies contributed a lot to our understanding and consensus that much more research should be undertaken, if possible.
So far, this column has been reportorial. It now turns abruptly editorial, since we are not yet ready to lay an old friend like the skier-visit controversy to rest without some suitable words. After all, what a committee could not do, SAM can, and I present below our findings as determined in the winking of an eye by our giant computers.
SAM Index of Skier Frequency & Skier-Visit Totals
| No. of skiers (millions) | No. of times skied Alpine during season | Frequency of skiing (percent) | Skier-visits accounted for (millions) | Skier-visits (percentage of total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.6 | 1 | 18.6 | 2.6 | 4 |
| 4.8 | 2 | 34.3 | 9.6 | 14.8 |
| 3.2 | 3-5 | 22.9 | 12.8 | 19.7 |
| 2.5 | 6-10 | 17.8 | 20.0 | 30.9 |
| .6 | 11-25 | 4.3 | 10.8 | 16.7 |
| .3 | 26 & over | 2.1 | 9.0 | 13.9 |
| 14.0 | 100% | 64.8 | 100% |
As the table shows, we found that a lot of skiers ski quite infrequently. I am not really surprised. If I were interviewed I would answer affirmatively when asked if, in the past year, I had played golf (I played once, under protest), or had ridden a roller coaster (likewise) or had roller skated (again likewise, but watch out for next year when I may be a heavy user). The point is, one is bound to pick up the occasional participant if the sampling is done right, and in the two studies we’re talking about, it was done right.
We found that there was, indeed, a “heavy quarter” (24.2%) accounting for a disproportionate number of all skier-visits — an hypothesis advanced by one ski statistician. The average (mean) number of days skied in a season came to 4.6, which is a whole lot lower than the 11.1 found by Ziff-Davis, or the 9 days found by the Forest Service. But then they had to go on the basis of what a bunch of skiers told them, whereas our computer was programmed to disbelieve skiers and rely instead on common sense.
We found that there were 3.4 million skiers who were “serious” by the Ziff-Davis definition (skied 6 or more days in the season), but Z-D counted only adults in arriving at its 3.6 million, while we counted the youngsters also.
All research is done for a purpose. The Forest Service study was designed to measure the size of the market in terms of “actives,” “temporary inactives” and “high potentials.” It did this well. The Ziff-Davis study was designed to measure the size of the market and determine the penetration of that market by their publication, Skiing. To do this they divided Alpine skiers into “serious” and “other.” The concept was realistic because the frequent skier is the target desired by Skiing’s advertisers, and the purpose of their study was fulfilled.
Now, SAM’s “research” also had a purpose, and we unilaterally and confidently declare it fulfilled. We have resolved the controversy, solved the conundrum. There are no more angels to count on the pinhead. All the figures add up, skiers and skier-visits are reconciled and the industry can now get down to some serious long-range planning.
On a more serious note, we do hope that future research in our field will not fail to measure the junior market. Neither the Forest Service nor the Ziff-Davis study did, and we feel mistakenly so.
A ski area manager counts bottoms, not adults, because those little bottoms sit on chairlifts, cafeteria chairs and on toilet seats. Kids are part of a ski area capacity. Each one skiing is a skier-visit. To come up with figures that ignore this is not helpful.
The Forest Service study was partly designed to measure the size of the potential skier market. It came up with 7.3 million high potentials 16 years and older. But what about the under-16’s? Through various community and school programs there are millions more who are “high potentials” by any standard, and many of them will enter the sport on their own, and without being a member of a skiing family or even the child of a “high potential” parent.
I would also like to suggest that an effective way of studying the “high potential” skier is by analyzing today’s first-time skier who was yesterday’s high potential skier. And then monitor a sub-sample of these with follow-up interviews by mail and phone. How many stick with the sport, and how many drop right out? It could be that a number of low-frequency skiers are accounted for by first-time skiers who never came back for more. But, let’s not quibble. The industry should be grateful for the valuable data supplied by the Forest Service and Ziff-Davis studies. We now have only to await the universal acclaim that will be accorded SAM for its contribution to statistical sanity.
